This last two minutes is particularly incredible. #HowManyMore #GunSickNation đșđž https://t.co/4gC2Jbwxge pic.twitter.com/fs9rCwpGod
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) March 3, 2023
I’m not a huge Jon Stewart fan, but I thought this was a decent takedown of a stupid argument
ON TENNESSEE BANNING DRAG SHOWS pic.twitter.com/64woa2eK7P
— Trae Crowder (@traecrowder) February 27, 2023
I just found out yesterday that a friend of mine, who I haven’t seen in years, passed away this summer. He was a sweet, kind neighbor and she was a beautiful drag queen. There is some really bad stuff going on…but here’s what I’m seeing, the reddest of Trump supporters who hang out on my FB – people I actually know (you know, vs. twitter that’s been overrun by racists bots) could give a flying fuck about drag – drag story time, drag shows, people who participate, either as audience members or as performers. And most do not understand the hate. My gut feeling, and that’s all it is, is that this hate toward LGBTQ+ has very narrow support – and it’s not playing well with the majority of voters. Who have more pressing concerns.
When Colorado passed a horrendous anti-gay law in (I think) 1993 (which in our defense was poorly worded and a NO vote actually meant you were voting yes kind of fuckery) the state was shunned by businesses – our thriving film/tv industry was decimated, companies large and small went elsewhere. Even after the amendment was quickly found unconstitutional, it took much longer for the stigma to fade.
I hope against hope, we begin to see similar backlash against these clearly unconstitutional bans. In the meantime, TN has a thriving music industry (or so I hearđ) maybe it’s time for them to stand up for what’s right, along with the large base of insurance industry companies and medical facilities, which make up the bulk of TN’s employment opportunities.
And then there is Mississippi and Wyoming:
The bill, which was introduced by Mississippi House Republicans now heads to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who has not indicated if he will sign it, the Associated Press reported. The bill sparked debate among Republican lawmakers on the Mississippi Senate floor before passage. Opponents said sales restrictions would interfere with the new-car market, possibly stopping automakers from bringing new jobs to the state, while proponents of the measure said that it would ensure all automakers âplay by the same rules,â according to the AP.
This bill is different from one recently introduced in the Wyoming legislature, which aims to encourage the ban EV sales by 2035. The Mississippi bill does nothing to discourage or ban EV sales, but makes their sale possible only through the traditional franchise dealership model.
I wonder how Elon feels about that?? Other states are working to ban EV charging stations mandates.
All these bans are only making poorer states poorer and doing nothing to help their citizens. Will the citizens care or will extreme gerrymandering make it moot? I have no idea. I just have to remain hopeful that this idiocy will burn itself out sooner rather than later.
Then there are the abortion bans…I can’t even write about those, because I see red whenever I even begin to pull up info on them. Walgreens can go fuck themselves.
I’ll leave all of FL/DeSantis fuckery to Betty to disseminate.
In other news, looks like this GoFundMe is halfway to its goal: Can We Help Larime and Sylv
ETA: I’m going to a super WOKE version of 1776 this month. I’m sure it makes some MAGAs heads explode, which is just a bonus for a great evening of theatre.
Open thread
TaMara
Well, now I’ve depressed the hell out of myself – so I’m going to go do something fun.
Also, I DO NOW HAVE video of Trixie and Nick playing – including the cutest game of hide-n-seek around my big tree. I will share that with you later today or tomorrow.
It’s the least I can do. đ
Geoduck
I already was avoiding Walgreens, after they tried to move their headquarters to Switzerland so they wouldn’t have to pay taxes anymore. I’m just glad there are alternatives where I live.
Alison Rose
I saw the Stewart clip yesterday and yeah, I don’t typically like him these days, but this is what he does best, and I’m glad he did it. I do wonder what that guy’s response was after Stewart told him he didn’t give a flying fuck about children being shot.
Unfortunately, while it is probably true that even among Republicans, they don’t really care that much about drag time story hour and don’t think politicians should be expending so much effort to attack things like it…they will still likely end up voting for those politicians because of, to quote Kandiss* Taylor, JESUS GUNS AND BABIES. The Democrats are gonna take their guns and make everyone go to Mosque and get abortions, so you know. They gotta do what they gotta do.
(*I loved how John Oliver described the spelling of her name, that it looks like how a cartoon snakes would say “candies”.)
Omnes Omnibus
Okay, Taylor and all your Swifties, time to focus on Tennessee. Maybe tell them they need to calm down.
Another Scott
I think youâre right that there will be a backlash. Itâs disturbing, though, that just a few RWNJs in places of responsibility can do so much damage and make it seem like they represent a large fraction of the population.
Anyone my age (early 60s) probably remembers Flip Wilson and Geraldine, Uncle Miltie and Auntie Mildred, Some Like it Hot, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Tootsie, even if they donât watch recent shows like Rue Paulâs Drag Race. Nobody with a functioning brain thinks that drag queens or trans people are a threat to anyone. All of this punching down, in so many areas, seems to me to be a desperate attempt to demand fealty to the RWNJ cult. Itâs just getting worse and worseâŠ, but theyâre not winning. Their desperation shows that they know they are losing â especially long-term.
Hang in there, everyone. Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: It’s not that normies will care about the issue, it that they will see people who are obsessed by it as the whackjobs that they are.
sab
@Alison Rose: Stewart has been begging us to both sides for a decade now, and the whole time we have been telling him we cannot because their side is nuts. He only just noticed that their side is nuts?
brendancalling
I know a lot of very liberal people in Nashville, but they wonât leave. The music industry is their job, and most of them bought houses there when it was still cheap and the state was less psycho. Whatâs driving people out is Nashvilleâs unaffordability. Iâve talked to them about whatâs going on, and theyâre disgusted and angry (especially about Nashville, a Democratic stronghold, being almost literally drawn and quartered into GOP diatricts) but they wonât leave. Too much invested.
Cameron
Georgia caught on, though. Whether the guv cares about the environment or not, he smelled where the money was and got the state on the EV wagon posthaste.
New Deal democrat
âthese clearly unconstitutional bans.â
They are only unconstitutional if the current GOP 6 on SCOTUS, who have shown not the slightest regard for precedent, say they are.
âWhen you have 5 votes, you can do anything.â Â – the late Justice William O. Brennan
Omnes Omnibus
@New Deal democrat: You don’t need all six. You need two.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@New Deal democrat:
Perhaps they would care about massive backlash being directed at them, then
Also what Omnes said above
Scout211
Speaking of laws and rights, this news out of Florida made me furious. A New Bill Could Legalize Kidnapping Trans Kids by Their Parents
The bill has not yet passed,  so I hope there is massive pushback by parents, families, lawyers, mental health professionals and  decent human beings.
West of the Rockies
I hope it’s true, TaMara, that the vast majority of people don’t give an eighth of a shit about drag, and that such bans blow up in the ugly faces of politicians, Fox News, and the bigots.
My kid’s best childhood friend is a beginning drag queen. My kid’s partner is a transboy. My ex and her own mother have really struggled with this information and tried desperately to set her up with a man (because a magic dick would straighten her out right away, don’t you know!).
I was talking to an friend a few days ago, a 60+ black woman, who is in most ways very progressive.  But she does not believe toxic masculinity is a real thing and is rather homophobic.  But she is also quite Christian. I hope that she, and my ex (who like me is white) and my ex MIL–all progressives–are outliers. I truly hope all of this homophobic horseshit is in a rapid decline.
It’s frightening.
RachelBakes
Enjoy 1776! We saw it in November and loved it. Our daughter has been hoping for a female version since she first saw the movie 8 years ago. Much more powerful hearing those words out of the mouths of female/female identifying people.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
Wouldn’t Walgreens bowing to conservative pressure to stop distributing abortion pills in 20 states along with the failure of several Democratic senators to agree to a filibuster carveout for something as basic and foundational as voting rights say otherwise? Not to mention the scary DeSantis fuckery in FL trying to dictate to Disney what content they can and cannot make?
I’d like to believe you, but I have my doubts at times. Am I wrong?
trollhattan
Who’s Stewart interviewing there? Kinda looks like Riker’s stunt double.
Also, too, my $0.02 any time “shall not be infringed” is invoked, “well-regulated militia” needs to likewise enter the conversation.
TaMara
@trollhattan: State Sen Nathan Dahm, here’s the full video
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
Jonathan Frakes was never that wide-faced, but yeah I can see the resemblance a bit
gwangung
Heh. Had a friend in the Broadway cast, and boy did she stir the pot. Among her comments was that the production wasn’t woke ENOUGH, as it didn’t explore the differences between black and non-black racial identities vis a vis white supremacy (which, actually, is a decent insight) She’s left the cast, but those questions still linger in the air….
Omnes Omnibus
Yes.
AliceBlue
@Cameron: Brian Kemp is awful but he’s not a psycho like DeSantis and Abbott. I think part of it is due to the fact that he doesn’t have presidential ambitions.
Another Scott
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Reuters:
1) Big companies are conservative (in the traditional sense of the word). When they’re threatened with legal action by a state, they will usually not fight the state.
2) There are federal laws that trump state laws about various things that may come into play about health care and all the rest. IANAL. We’ll see.
3) The GQP is always throwing stuff against the wall to see what will stick. That doesn’t mean that they will always win. Unfortunately, they cause pain and expenses and anguish for people affected, but as long as we have the legal system we do, and as long as GQP monsters end up in positions of authority, then we have to expect – and fight – their punching down.
None of this means they are winning, IMHO. Winners don’t throw tantrums while they’re winning.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
RedDirtGirl
@Geoduck: I wonder how to get a national boycott of Walgreens going. I certainly donât have the social media presence to trigger it alone.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m curious how you account for every advancement the blue states are making in your scorekeeping.
Ruckus
John Stewart said it perfectly.
It is, like everything else rethuglicans are trying to do today, performance bullshit.
There is zero logic, rational thought or actual knowledge about anything. This is stanch conservatism, in which there always has to be a thing that can not be regulated and everything else which has to be way over regulated. It doesn’t have to make sense. It strikes me that it’s like when I, a non catholic, went to a catholic technical HS (for one year) and every week the class had to go to confession. Being non catholic I stood outside the auditorium/church with it’s confessionals inside. One day one of the teacher/priests came out and told me I HAVE to go to confession. I told him I am not catholic and no I do not have to confess anything. That was not a winning argument. I was taken in, looked at the asinine books and walked back out. Because my confession would have been to that ass that I AM NOT A FUCKING CATHOLIC, I am an agnostic, a non believer and fucking better off for it. (Yes I knew how to swear well as a 12 yr old.) And then I would have gotten beaten by the vice principal, a priest. All that year did for me was convince me that if this has anything to do with god, I wanted zero to do with it. It was catholicism, it was as I see it religion. And it is as I see it, conservatism. They are very, very similar and they are that because they have structure that makes zero sense.
This John Stewart video, just over 2 minutes long says far more than most anything I’ve ever read about this. Thank you TaMara.
Barbara
I hate you therefore I get to regulate you. That about sums up the logic of banning drag shows “to protect the children.” Everyone knows it. They know it. They just don’t have the integrity to say it out loud.
Kelly
The states Walgreens will stop distribution in response to state AGs letter are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. States without new abortion restrictions where Republican AGs are pulling threats out of their asses are Kansas, Alaska, Iowa and Montana
Scout211
Both Walgreens and CVS got the warning letter from the attorneys general in the anti-abortion states. I did a search and could not find a statement from CVS. Have they responded to the warning letter yet?
delphinium
This. In this same vein, I very much doubt the Republican-led house hearings will turn anyone not already a die-hard MAGA in their favor and will probably turn off some independent voters. Won’t rid of us those Reps in safe seats, but may help us switch some seats next election (e.g. Boebert).
Also, Some Like it Hot is one of my favorite movies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RedDirtGirl: Boycott Walgreens was trending on twitter earlier. I really don’t know how many people that represents. In my smallish town, the alternatives to Walgreens are pretty much Walmart (which apparently got the same letters from R AGs and ignored them?) and Amazon.
Geminid
@AliceBlue: Kemp may have presidential ambitions, but he can wait until 2028 to run. His term as Governor ends January, 2027.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Winners donât throw tantrums while theyâre winning.
Who says they are winning? (couldn’t resist that…)
And yes some winners do. I worked in professional sports and a lot of winners do. I’ve had them do this to my face about crap that had nothing to do with them, and not just participants but winners and champions. And they did it because they could get away with it. It struck me then that this is conservative politics. You set asinine rules about something and go ballistic when someone does or says anything about your asinine rule/concept. And never in public. Conservatives like guns because it gives them an “army” to get their asinine way of having asinine concepts of power. It never makes sense, it is about followers and how to get them to have power that they would never otherwise have.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Goku seems to think they are.
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: Honestly, I wish she would. When she spoke up a few years ago in support of a couple of Tennessee Dems, and encouraged her fans to register to vote, over 60,000 young people registered in the 24 hours following her post. She’s got power that way and I wish she’d use it more often.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Doubt it. She wants to be the antihero.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: I wasn’t really joking. At the same time, her power is probably greater for not being exercised too often.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: That’s mean.
trollhattan
@TaMara:Â â
Merci. State that gave us Jim Inhofe.
RaflW
On the theme of rights, this was written by a very courageous friend of mine. She and her family live in Boise, and I hope they all will be safe.
I am an Idaho parent saving my transgender childâs life. I am not a criminal | Opinion by Rev. Sara Lawall
When my teenager came out as transgender, I sprang into action, ensuring she had all the supports in place as we began what we both knew would be a long journey. I wanted my child to feel supported, safe and loved for exactly who she is â who she knows herself to be. She also knew this path was not simple or easy, and we all worried about how kids at school and the community at large would accept her. Hers, like so many trans youth, was not a rash decision; not an experiment that might be âfunâ to try. Not in a society and a state that questions and attempts to criminalize her very existence.
House Bill 71 strips our transgender youth of their humanity and their right to receive vital, appropriate medical care from a trusted expert. Care that follows evidence-based best practices. It criminalizes parents like me and doctors ensuring our youth get to live out their true identity; protecting them from the spirals of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. We are not criminals. My child (and others like her) is not a crime.
[much more at the link above]
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Alison Rose
@Baud: Nah, she wants to get back on her vigilante shit.
(Don’t get me started on a Taylor song titles game. I’ll never stop.)
GibberJack
The LBGTQ hate may not play well with a lot of trumpers but they will still vote for the people who push this. Because no matter how terrible and evil the fringe right which owns the Republican party becomes, Democrats are always worse.
Cameron
@trollhattan: I thought it was J. D. Vance’s alcoholic cousin.
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: True, but a lot of us fans have been disappointed at times when she’s kept quiet about something that could possibly benefit from her support. While I don’t think celebrities are required to engage politically, and I know it’s a complex situation for someone like her, I’d like to see her use that power more than occasionally. I mean, at this point, even if she loses a few fans over it, it’s not like it’s going to hurt her bottom line. Girl is worth zillions.
patrick II
I hate this new anti-trans campaign because it is so contrived. They needed someone to hate after the gay marriage court decisions and bills passed and all of their friends came out and there were too many. So trans people, here it comes.
Ten or twelve years ago all of this anti-trans hate didn’t exist. I hate that they can just flip people’s switch like that. It’s like having one of those dogs you can train to hate black people. What does Tucker say (in his very feminine, high, whiney voice by the way)? O.K., whatever, I will hate trans, not get vaccinated, not wear masks, buy a big ass gun to protect myself from trans (and coincidentally black) people. Where’s my treat? Am I a good boy?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: I was just reading about how Oklahoma wants to legalize the pot to lure Texans there “on vacation”. I’d be a bit wary of giving TX cops another excuse to pull people over, but I’m not a pot-taker (doesn’t work for me, I wish it did) or a Texan.
delphinium
@Barbara: Right? At least have the balls to say so instead of hiding behind your “deeply held religious beliefs” or “protecting the children” BS.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Once you decide that kidnapping immigrant children is hunky dory, moving on to trans kids is not a bit step
kalakal
There’s something very wrong with people who see Christmas pantos as a threat to children. Drag is a huge part of it and the tradition goes back centuries.
More prudish than the Victorians is quite the slogan.
Frankensteinbeck
Stewart has had a strange path along the political spectrum. He was clearly trying to be an unfiltered liberal voice when he entered The Daily Show. He became increasingly both sides over the years, I suspect as a mix of socializing with racists like O’Reilly and his own thread of anti-black bigotry inflamed by Obama’s election. He victim-blamed Obama disgracefully for Republican asshole obstruction, and made a huge public deal of ‘give Republicans a chance’ when they were already insane with hate. The switchover from Obama to Trump seems to be increasingly forcing him to accept that the Republican Party is evil and there is no equivalency, no sharing of blame, no ‘both sides are bad’ here.
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
If Walgreens looses a not insignificant number of customers then yes they lose. This current bullshit is conservatism performance, well you can’t call it performance art because it is asinine and ignorant. It’s like taking a stance that Lauren Boebert has a higher intelligence than a trash can. And a trash can has more useful value.
Frankensteinbeck
@patrick II:
Speaking as someone with many trans friends of the previous ‘generation’, it sure as Hell did. Holy shit, did it. But the thing is, conservatives didn’t need to make a campaign about it or pass laws. It was near-universally accepted, and the social stigma was brutally enforced. They have always held this hate, just now the public has left them behind and they’re fighting back.
Omnes Omnibus
@GibberJack: The Trumpers are a lost cause. No one should bother with them. It’s the loosely affiliated and both sides crowds that could be affected here. And even if they can’t be convinced to vote for Dems, they could decide to stay home instead voting R. Why do people assume that anyone is talking about changing the minds of hard core Republicans? Why think that if something won’t reach them is ineffective and therefor pointless? Elections are won at the fucking margins.
Another Scott
@Scout211: The Reuters story at #23 says that as of March 2 that CVS had not responded yet.
(Not directed at you – ) I’m not a fan of giant companies that try to drive out competition, but Walgreens is not the villain here, IMHO. A boycott of Walgreens would be misguided. We need to direct our outrage at the RWNJs who are issuing the threats and passing the laws.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
@GibberJack:
To update a golden oldie:Â Cis het silence = trans queer death.
John Revolta
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Republican Attorneys General Assn. is perhaps the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in this country, and yes I know how tough the competition is. This is their doing. More people should know about these fucks.
UncleEbeneezer
The real question though is: will your reddest of red, Trump supporting friends ditch the GOP, bother third party, not vote etc., because of these horrific laws? Â Until thereâs a substantial COST to these asshole legislators, this shit is gonna continue.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Frankensteinbeck: Wyatt Cenac is not a fan.
I remember DougJ once said that he most hostile pushback he ever got here was when he posted a snarky take on Jon Stewart, IIRC that was before the Rally About Nothing and the Lincoln Tunnel Speech.
Anoniminous
@West of the Rockies:
Is it only because I have a very strange sense of humor I find the fact her mother and grandmother are attempting to pimp out their daughter and granddaughter to “save” her for Heterosexuality hysterically funny? I mean, it used to be they’d lock-up their daughter to save her from a “magic dick.”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s when I stopped really paying attention to him. But I think he’s probably more useful than not in reaching certain types of people.
Anoniminous
Gay marriage was a hot button winning issue for Conservative Scum up until it wasn’t. I have yet to find a completely convincing analysis for why the dramatic flip occurred in 2011. In part, methinks, it was because the horrifying ‘Teh Ghey‘ became ‘Bob and Mike down the street’ & etc. Right now people know jackshit about Transsexuality – even the people who study its Molecular Neurobiology* are scratching their heads. That means Conservative Scum can use ignorance to manufacture fear and bigotry that they can then use to maintain their political power. And grift.
It’s all about the power and grift.
* the study of the nervous system, how the brain works, and how both underpin and give rise to Human Behavior, e.g., gender identity
Ruckus
@kalakal:
More prudish than the Victorians is quite the slogan.
Well when ya got nothing other than hate and a knowledge that your bullshit is losing all it’s power, ya gotta double down. This is conservative doubling down. And no it makes zero sense but then it is conservatism, the political concept that it must have been better when some one told us what to do because we have the sense of a potato and can never actually think anything through from start to finish, especially if it takes more thought than do I have to use the bathroom.
Cameron
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Make your next getaway dream…..Oklahoma!” Nope. Not seeing it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose:Â â
It’s not about the money. It is that if she does it all the time it will lose meaning. She becomes just another lefty pop star. Also, if you can’t figure out her stance from her songs, you are a bit dim. That being said I know some right wing Billy Bragg fans. That one vexes me.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks for the pointer. That’s a thoughtful piece with Cenac.
The scales fell from my eyes about Stewart when I was at the Rally he did in DC with Colbert. The both-sidesing attempts were terrible.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
Meanwhile FL is also bringing back another golden oldie:a bathroom bills with a $10,000 fine for not using the bathroom of the sex assigned to you at birth, both to entrap the unwary and make trans people afraid to even consider using public restroom. Non-FL trans people could easily be arrested as well, e.g. if I was doing a layover at the Miami airport, taking a cruise that leaves from FL, or visiting Disneyworld. Could they successfully prosecute me? Doubtful, because all my legal ID says I’m female, and CA let me also change my birth certificate. But fighting it still costs time and money.
Meanwhile, a new Texas House bill that provides property tax relief based on the size of a family excludes LGBTQ couples and divorced parents with children, among other parties, from getting the tax advantage. The proposed law is inspired by policies enacted in Poland and Hungary.
#TransGenocide
Omnes Omnibus
@Sister Golden Bear: Yes, aside from electoral advantage, doing the right thing is the right thing to do.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cameron: I’ve been to Oklahoma. Do not recommend. Seeing Geronimo’s grave was pretty cool though.
Omnes Omnibus
Did they even bother translating it from the original German?
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
I think this, a) doesnât go far enough, and, b) needs to be the main hammer point for all messaging on the issue.
What I mean is that nobody, functioning brain or not, thinks drag queens or trans people are a threat. They just donât. They didnât before the decision to launch The Trans Panic, they donât now itâs part of their dogma.
They are lying. Thatâs all. The very core of their claims, the insistence that, even if âyou peopleâ donât have a problem with âthemâ, everyone else has to accept that people on the Right really are genuinely scared that drag queens and Trans people are some kind of threat to something they genuinely care about, so thereâs an argument to be had that these bans and attacks and the whole political circus around them are part of normal political theatre, is simply bullshit.
Theyâre not afraid. They just want to pretend that they are so they have an excuse to push for laws that hurt and victimise a minority group because thatâs what they always do. And theyâre  just lying about it because thatâs also what they always do.
Donât give them a fucking inch.
Omnes Omnibus
For once you were not overly prolix. And on fucking point.
kalakal
@Sister Golden Bear:
@Omnes Omnibus:
good grief. Blut und Boden rides again.
It’s never worked but it’s always caused a lot of misery.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Iâve got a dinner date. No prolix, no problem.
delphinium
Am guessing the hate was always there under the surface but now they have their instructions to promote it, like the good poo-flinging monkeys they are.
As for Tucker, even Fox’s lawyers have stated in court he is a liar and doesn’t really believe the shit he spews. This should be mentioned anytime he opens his maw to spit out the shit du jour.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus: â German Race Laws were pretty much translated from the American, except where the Nazis considered a law too extreme.
Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
Also, too, Henry Ford’s racist paper “Dearborn Independent” was hugely influential on Hitler. Ol’ Adolf revered Ford both for his racism and his technological expertise and awarded him the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a civilian: the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.â
Real American History and American global cultural influence is more tricky than I, at least, would like.
OzarkHillbilly
That Walgreens news makes my even happier that I recently switched to Sinks.
delphinium
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They will need a stronger drug than that to lure people. Is acid still a thing?
Frankensteinbeck
@Tony Jay:
They are, in a way, but not in the ways they frame it to normies. They’re afraid that they’re losing the ability to shit on a minority they’re used to being freely able to hate. ‘Men in dresses’ was a go-to joke for more than a century.
They’re also scared and angry that their children and grandchildren are learning tolerance and are telling their bigoted families and bigoted cult to fuck off.
The whole trans thing is also a threat to the worldview of people who think men and women are inherently different. It’s one of the big TERF things in Britain. If you think (like Rowling has made it clear she does) that men are inherently rapists and women are inherently victims, the trans and nonbinary movements are everything you’re against.
Mike in NC
Netanyahu trying to install himself as Israel’s dictator for life, having watched Trump and Bolsonaro give it a go in their countries.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, The real problem is that until moderate Republicans and Independents object in large numbers, itâs hard to see things changing. Â And in Deep Red States, there may not even be enough of them to matter.
Sister Golden Bear
@kalakal: It’s worth remember that before the Nazis came for the Communists (per the Niemöller poem), before Kristallnacht, the Nazis came for the queer and trans people. That famous photo of Nazi book-burning was them burning the library in 1933 of the Institute of Sex Research, which pioneered research and treatment for various matters regarding gender and sexuality, including gay, transgender, and intersex topics. For good measure the Nazis also killed a trans woman who worked there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Yes, there was a commenter here who used to argue that Nazism was imported fully from the US. Explaining that it was just the racial laws didn’t convince her.
Captain C
@Another Scott:
John McEnroe is on line 2 for you shouting that you cannot be serious.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember a day when you would lament my posting Taylor Swift related material. Oh, how times have changed…
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: So, for now, we win where we can. It is the kind of thing that might move a small percentage in WI for example.
RaflW
@GibberJack: I’m not naive, we have to out organize these f–kers for 2024 and beyond.
But my hope given how desultory, empty and ridiculous this year’s CPAC is, is that enough Republicans and
independentsembarrassed Republicans stay home next timeeta: And very much what @Omnes Omnibus said. Peeling off 5%, or even 2% in many states or districts, of one-time Trump voters to stay home or vote some rando third party would swing things. It’s what 2022 showed us!
Honus
@Another Scott: I guess you never saw John McInroe play tennis.
ETA sorry see Captain C beat me to it.
patrick II
@Frankensteinbeck:
There is so much trans hate now. Was there hatred before? I am sure there was. Was it spreading like polio through unvaccinated hordes? No. The spread and amplification are what is different. Were people for wearing drag clothes? Halloween would have filled the jails. Boys in dresses and lipstick. Putting on drag shows will now be illegal in many states? Come on, man. There was always some hate, but much acceptance. Now anti-trans has been turned into a cause led by people seeking political advantage inciting bigots (that you know of) who lead the callow and profit seekers. It is power politics/business now with a big advertising campaign that creates new demand to fix problems we didn’t know we had before like needing giant fucking four-wheel pickups so we can look like real men who go off-road once every few years.
I hate that people are so malleable and easily lead into hate because it is to the advantage of those who lead them. Do you think Putin really goes to church and hates gays for religious purposes? Do you think Trump does? Fuck no. They are firestarters, at first softly blowing on embers until they get a flame and then it spreads and destroys.
The risk for trans and cross-dressers has changed, regardless of what you say. It is getting harder and life is getting worse for them. The change is purposeful and to the benefit of some, fills an empty need to blame and hate in others, and lets the foolish sheep know which back end to look at as they follow them over the cliff.
Gvg
@Another Scott: afraid it needs to be both.
Sister Golden Bear
@patrick II:Â @delphinium: It’s always been there simmering, and occasionally boiling over â Jesse Helms and the TERFs blocked healthcare being included as part of ADA in the 1980s.*
But it started ramping up again when 1) they lost the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality, and 2) trans people started getting some prominent visibility, Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox, etc. They initially attempts at “bathroom bills” largely failed, so afterwards they explicitly start reframing things from “privacy” to “trans people are inherently predatory pedophile. It was also a backdoor way to go after LGB people, who they couldn’t kick around anymore politically; it’s not coincidence that Iowa is not proposing a ban on same sex marriage. The 2020 SCOTUS decision in favor of trans rights was another big factor in their escalation.
*I and other trans people had very mixed feeling about trans-ness being label a “disability,” but at the time, it was the only way to get insurers to cover it.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: She beat me down. Resistance is futile. The rerecording of her early material was such a boss move. Also, I promised my Swifty niece that I would give her a fair shake. She will give my suggestions a chance because of it.
West of the Rockies
@Anoniminous:
It is funny in a dark, absurdist way. Thankfully, she is strong and wouldn’t capitulate. They came close to losing her affection.
Sister Golden Bear
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bingo. Go back and look at the media from the 80s and 90s, and even the 00s.
Gvg
@Sister Golden Bear: that tax law might get challenged fast. Quite a few people would have standing I think and these days plenty of conservatives are divorced and remarried. In fact I think the statistics are liberals have a slightly lower divorce rate. So I donât know that that law will even be popular in their own party.
RaflW
@patrick II: The week FPOTUS was inaugurated I was at the big LGTQ+ conference called Creating Change. I sat at lunch one day with a comfy-looking retired Florida gay man.
He talked about going to Mar a Lardo (not what he called it) many times with gay friends and how Donny would work the room and schmooze the obviously gay gaggles.
Trump is, like so many people, entirely transactional. As long as being chummy with queers earned dollars, he played along. Now that they’re betting on trans- and homophobia to in effect buy more votes, he’d sign warrants to arrest the same people who’s checkbooks he kissed in 2015.
It’s evil. In the most banal and yet deeply dangerous way. No human is of value except as to how it moment by moment benefits the already powerful.
And people who think they’re safe because they don’t have the despised identity of the day are deluding themselves.
RaflW
@Frankensteinbeck: 12 years ago the right was still able to milk ‘issues’ like gay adoption. And while they were in the process of losing the societal argument on same sex marriage, Obergefell wasn’t decided till 2015 (and, hey, even that is being re-opened as a line of attack).
So they didn’t have to drill down to ever-more-tiny minorities for their two minutes hate.
Tony Jay
@Frankensteinbeck:
Thatâs sort of the point I was incoherently grasping towards. Theyâre afraid of some things (irrelevance, lack of authority, the real world, etc) but theyâre not afraid of the things they tell people theyâre afraid of. Itâs just an act, so old fashioned and hackneyed that thereâs no justifiable reason to take it seriously anymore.
And the TERF types can just fuck off.
Another Scott
@Captain C: Heh. Touche’.
I cannot quickly find what the score was at the time, but he did win that 1981 championship at Wimbledon. Wikipedia tells me that particular match was the first round against Tom Gullickson (JMcE won 7-6(5), 7-5, 6-3).
Maybe it’s a whiney/whingey Queens NYer thing??
Cheers,
Scott.
Scout211
Of course, the outrage should be placed on the legislatures in the states that pass these laws. But how can these new laws be tested in the courts if these large corporations donât push back?
Someone upthread mentioned Walmart has been sent the letter and so far has not responded. Â CVS has not responded. Â I hope both of those corporations do nothing with the letters and their legal departments prepare to fight this. I hope.
patrick II
@Sister Golden Bear:
Agree.
eclare
@delphinium:Â Â One of the best ending lines ever in Some Like It Hot.
waspuppet
I just get so sad and tired about it sometimes.
I lived with a bunch of people in the early 90s, one of whom was Mike and he when he was wearing sweats or jeans with no makeup, and Pearl and she when she was wearing a dress and makeup.
I managed to handle this. Imagine 30 years later having no problem telling the world you canât handle this.
eclare
@Alison Rose:  Same. The documentary on Taylor was very good and interesting. I think it’s on Netflix, Miss Americana. It shows her composing style, how she began to speak out, and her cats đ
Captain C
@Another Scott:
Except for the fact that his winning was generally an Oz-level illusion*, TFG fits that description nicely. I suspect the redder parts of that borough are full of such people, successful in life but angry, bitter, and resentful at everything and everyone.
*Given his Russia ties, would that be Potemkin Winning?
Sister Golden Bear
@Gvg:
Agreed. But another part of the Christofascist/Republican strategy is making use expend time, money, and energy fighting defense battles, rather than being able to use that fighting to expand our rights.
Sister Golden Bear
@eclare:
Some Like It Hot was one of the most queer/trans supportive movies ever made.
eclare
Deleted.
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus: ” . . . I know some right wing Billy Bragg fans.”
Xander: How? What? How?
Giles: Three excellent questions.
Geminid
@Sister Golden Bear: Billie Wilder, the director of Some Like it Hot, was a Jewish immigrant from Austria. He worked in the German film industry before he fled to France and then to the U.S. I think that Wilder’s movies benefited from his outsider’s point of view.
mvr
@Another Scott:
Walgreens is also a funder of ALEC, which is why I stopped using them four or five years ago.
RaflW
@Sister Golden Bear: Yep. Ron is using the ‘flood the zone with sh*t” strategy in FL. It’ll be whack-a-mole for a long time to fight off all the evil malarkey.
UncleEbeneezer
@Honus: Or Novax Djokovic, Nick Kyrgios, Alexander Zverev etc.
brantl
Decent? Â Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, that was SPECTACULAR!
Heidi Mom
@kalakal: And then there’s Mrs. Doubtfire. Probably ruined a generation.
Matt McIrvin
I saw that production of 1776 when it was playing the ART in Cambridge. It’s awesome, though I was actually surprised by how unchanged the script was from the original. It obviously would not have existed without Hamilton, but then Hamilton would not have existed without 1776.
brantl
@AliceBlue: yes, he does, heâs just avoiding the STump shrapnel.
brantl
@RedDirtGirl: yell out loud on social media, and then let us know where to yell with you?
Matt McIrvin
@gwangung: Basically aside from the staging and casting, the play is the original 1960s 1776 with only minor tweaks. So some things are obviously going to play oddly. I think the script is a bit more sympathetic to Jefferson than history calls for, for instance, and while it faces slavery head-on, Native Americans seem to be completely erased from its narrative (though the ART production did have an acknowledgement of the Native presence in the area before the performance).
Matt McIrvin
Maybe you’re right, but it feels to me like the haters are feeling their oats, feeling capable of saying and doing things that they weren’t just a year or two ago. And I worry that things are heading to a tipping point where suddenly everything is just going to go backwards–the majority of people will perceive that it’s now dangerous to be an ally to LGBT people and good for their career and their safety to be a hater, and they won’t care that much, so they’ll just become haters.
Ruckus
@delphinium:
Am guessing the hate was always there under the surface but now they have their instructions to promote it, like the good poo-flinging monkeys they are.
Nope.
Hate is not under the surface on the right. Less out in the open for some, but not under the surface.
It’s not that they hate on their own, they hate what they are told to hate. It’s the same as it’s always been, when you want a group of people to act a certain way you tell them over and over what to think and why. It doesn’t have to have logic for many people because those people don’t understand logic, they understand hate pretty good though. And if they get told often enough who the ones they need to hate are, they will hate them. It doesn’t have any rationality to it, it herd mentality. And humans are, or at least have been for centuries, herd animals. At one time it was healthy to be a herd human because a lot of the predators always looked for the weakest of the herd. Now the predators (rethuglican politicians) are the herders, rather than animals that will eat you. And yes, sometimes the herders are morons being led. Take Lauren Boebert. Please!
Ruckus
@RaflW:
SFB is just the most obvious about this. Or at least the one most likely to say this crap in public, because he’s a worthless fuck, even to himself.
I always liked the Forbes article about him that if he had just invested the 400 million he stole from his siblings when dad died in a fund he would be worth the 15-16 Billion he was claiming he was worth. But everything he’s put his hands on has been basically a failure. His worth now is because he hasn’t been investing in completely asinine deals that are supposed to make him richer but which far more often fail utterly.
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can’t hear about any calls for boycotts without thinking of Buggin’ Out calling for a boycott of Sal’s Famous.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Omnes Omnibus: Fair, fair. Check out “Our Song.” My personal favorite.
JimV
Not a Jon Stewart fan? That hurts. He’s a fan of you.
brendancalling
Iâm never shopping at Walgreens again.
whatsleft
@Another Scott:
I disagree – those that enable evil are not good Germans, they are at best Nazi-adjacent. Â I will never set foot in a Walgreens again, and I am encouraging all of my sphere of influence to do the same, and I informed Walgreens of this and my reason for doing so as I withdrew from their customer appreciation program. Walgreens is withholding womenâs healthcare. Â This is unacceptable.