This week, we commemorate the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement – a feat that took people coming together in good faith to work for a better future.
Today, @PresidentIRL and I rang the Peace Bell and planted a tree to celebrate peace and recommit to sustained progress. pic.twitter.com/0no7etmRNM
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 13, 2023
It’s been another… interesting week, but at least from the Biden Administration we don’t have to expect a non-stop cascade of horrors…
Our Administration will protect the FDA’s ability to approve safe and effective drugs that Americans rely on. pic.twitter.com/u5QAvBJjz9
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) April 14, 2023
.@VP and @SecondGentleman welcomed wounded warriors to the White House.
Mr. Emhoff said in his remarks: “Who are our nation’s heroes? They are our veterans, active-duty and reserve service members, military spouses and families, caregivers, and survivors.” pic.twitter.com/j9GZnalTUm
— Liza Acevedo (@LizaAcevedo46) April 14, 2023
not the gender-assigned-at-birth part, the part where you go “you know what, it’s not for me and I don’t care to understand it, but go for it if you wanna”
— post malone ergo propter malone (@PropterMalone) April 10, 2023
and by the same token their panic over kids vulnerability to strangers is about simultaneously disavowing where they are actually most vulnerable (in the family) while claiming the prerogative to abuse in that context because It's Good Actually. not hypocrisy, but consistency (2)
— inverted vibe curve: burgertown must be defended (@PatBlanchfield) April 13, 2023
By this point in 2019, the fifteen candidates were already on the trail. The first debate was in June. There is no 2024 primary. I'm very sorry for the hacks whose livelihoods depend on replaying 2016 over and over.
— Slope Slipperer (@agraybee) April 12, 2023
Suzanne
Yes.
Minding your own damn business: let’s bring it back as an American virtue.
Baud
Elijah is an idiot. This primary will be a three way race among Biden, Marianne Williamson, and RFK, Jr.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Suzanne
@Baud: Come on, I’m feeling #Schultzmentum.
In all seriousness, Pritzker is probably wading into the pool for 2028, maybe trying to raise his profile a bit.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Geminid
I already posted President Biden’s Friday schedule on the late night thread so I won’t repeat it. But I will say I am looking forward to the remarks Joe Biden will deliver at Saint Muredoch’s Cathedral in County Mayo, starting at 4:15 pm (Eastern time).
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Mornin’!
Or should I say, “top o’ the morning”, in keeping with the theme?
Baud
@Geminid:
That’s late in Ireland.
Baud
@Suzanne:
We’re going to have sooo many people run in 2028.
Kay
That describes a traditional panic. The panic over gender affirming care and drag queens on the Right and among anti woke ninnies is actually an escalation of a conventional panic because it is the parents of these children who are making these decisions. What they’re actually doing is insisting they should be the decision makers for all parents – no gender affirming care or drag queen brunches or banned books for everyones children. No one is forcing any of these people to seek gender affirming care or drag queen entertainment for their own children.
Baud
I guess he thinks decent people won’t notice.
NotMax
What, no laying of hands on a shiny orb?
//
Suzanne
@Baud: We’re gonna need a bigger boat. The potential candidates know that and are strategizing accordingly. It takes a long time to build a personal brand, and a career.
Baud
@Kay:
Not until I’m elected president. Then they get a taste of their own medicine.
New Deal democrat
Just going to drop this here about Clarence Thomas . . .
Of course he will never be removed by impeachment, because of the 2/3’s requirement in the Senate.
BUT, if he has committed a crime, then a sordid but effective back room trade would work: criminal charges are not filed, in a trade for which Thomas retires.
I suspect there is at least one more GOP Justice who would be vulnerable to the same issue.
A bare knuckles AG like Bobby Kennedy wouldn’t hesitate.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m interested to see how much specific coverage this gets by conventional political media. They cover DeSantis a ton- it’s almost Trump -like levels of promotion. Let’s see if they go to their conventional abortion “black out mode” now that it’s DeSantis + womens rights.
I don’t know why they’re so scared this change in US policy and politics. It’s obviously newsworthy, politically, even if they think womens agency and autonomy is unimportant. How brittle and conventional they are really shows when they have a new reality to grapple with. It seems to take them years to adjust.
Baud
@Kay:
I think the media is reluctant to take the initiative covering newsworthy items that could help liberals. They’ll do it only if facts on the ground force them to.
Kay
@Baud:
“I am not watching Disney movies in my home and you can’t make me!”
Um, okay?
Suzanne
@Kay: Also, as someone who has actively sought out gender-affirming care for their child, in a major American city….. please allow me to assure everyone that it is not an easy or effortless endeavor. Spawn is now 19, so legally an adult, but when he was underage, it was a huge investment of time and money (even though we have good health insurance that covers hormone therapy). For a few years, he was under the care of a therapist, a psychiatrist, the head of adolescent medicine at Phoenix Children’s Hospital for transition care, as well as all the normal teenager stuff….primary care physician and dentist and orthodontist. Getting all of this in place took years, and maintaining it was hours every week. It makes me crazy to see the assertions that parents just want to get their kids on drugs as some sort of “easy fix”. Like, fuck you, dumbasses.
twbrandt
So lemme get this straight: 12-year-olds aren’t old enough to learn about sex, but they are old enough to have sex with their spouses. Do I have that right?
twbrandt
So lemme get this straight: 12-year-olds aren’t old enough to learn about sex, but they are old enough to get married and have sex with their spouses. Do I have that right?
Baud
@Kay:
You will watch Encanto and love it! Now drink this Bud before I stick a tube down your throat!
There go two miscreants
@twbrandt: Getting married while totally ignorant about sex is a hallowed American tradition!
Suzanne
@twbrandt: This is their strategy to repopulate America with white babies. What could go wrong?!
Kay
@Suzanne:
I had an (older, male) juvenile judge tell me a long time ago there are “two kinds” of parents- those who think their children are property and those who think their children are people- you’re in the latter group
Baud
Via Reddit, cool photo.
https://i.redd.it/adkbz87oxsta1.png
twbrandt
Ah crap, the old double post. Can someone with the magic button please delete comment #20?
OzarkHillbilly
@twbrandt: And they are old enough to have children but not old enough to have an abortion.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Eh, the Republicans don’t think anyone is old enough to have an abortion.
Jeffro
@Baud: you took the words right outta my mouth.
“Sorry media: we’re gonna bore the shit out of you on the D side. But please DO keep reporting on the Rs.”
-Dem messaging, I wish, for the next 18 months.
Geminid
@Baud: Yes, President Biden’s remarks at Muredoch Cathedral will begin at 9:15 pm local time. His remarks won’t be too long, though; he’s due to depart Ireland at 5:40 pm, headed for Dover, Delaware and a weekend at Rehoboth Beach.
RandomMonster
You know, I spend a fair amount of my free time reading about politics and I can honestly say, “JB who?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That pic is quite mouthy. It says about 3,000 words.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Aw, c’mon! None of them stand a chance against Baud!2024.
Kay
@Baud:
My NY grandaughter loves Encanto. I was skeptical of her movie judgment because I watched “Tangle” with her (Rapunzel remake – really bad- she liked it- what is she thinking?!) but Encanto is wonderful. Really well done.
NotMax
Looking around for possible Mother’s Day gifts, stumbled upon this.
No batteries nor charging, it rotates when exposed to light (sample video of it in action available on that page). Kind of like the look of the flowers, although the greater variety of solar system and terrestrial globes on the main pages are also neat-o. Only thing is it strikes me as overpriced; for my wallet that’s a hefty chunk of change am chary about committing to.
Opinions?
OzarkHillbilly
@RandomMonster: You’re not from around here, are you?
tobie
The 5th Circuit’s decision to prohibit the sale of mifepristone by mail and to limit who can prescribe it really knocked the wind out of my sails. This must be fought…but, damn, if this is not so depressing.
sab
@Geminid: I had a great great grandfather who emigrated from County Mayo in 1842 as a 16 year old orphan. As far as we can tell, he felt lucky to have made it out alive
ETA His wife, from County Kerry, missed Ireland.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: For my money, Encanto is the best Disney movie in quite some time.
Suzanne
@Kay: I specifically get very frustrated by any statement/insinuation that gender-affirming care is some sort of shortcut or easy way out. I also understand why some parents slow-walk it…. Spawn has bipolar disorder that was not well-controlled for a while, and he was hanging out with some people who were shitty, and I did not want him making any kind of big medical decisions until he was in a better frame of mind. I also did not want him to think that hormone therapy would be the magic bullet for being bipolar. So we consulted allllll of the professionals, because the guidelines for transition care are explicit about mental health being stable before starting hormone therapy. Again, it took a huge investment of time. It’s by no means a shortcut.
I also want to note that it’s an ongoing thing. Spawn just took a Greyhound to visit his dad, and the Border Patrol boarded the bus and searched everyone. Spawn was not happy about having to show them his medication vials and hypodermic needles.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Ouch. I’d love to have one but I’m not worth it.
Baud
@tobie:
DOJ will be going to the Supreme Court today.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Isn’t it good? I was buzzing around her while she watched more than “watching with her”- childrens movies (and books) sometimes bore me- but I got sucked in. Almost never happens. The music is good.
Betty
@Kay: The Washington Post had it as a headline online this morning. They also had an opinion piece outlining his anti-freedom agenda. Good to see this.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: My #2 granddaughter loves it. Vivi isn’t quite old enough to have favorites. Same for my NOLA gals, tho Lyriel is getting close.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@lowtechcyclist: But so far he’s announced only for “20xx!!”
Here’s the FTFNYT with its daily dose of cheer: “Unemployment is low. Inflation is falling. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT???” (some capitalization and punctuation added)
Kay
@Suzanne:
I think people who claim it is easy or a shortcut are not people who have had to access specialized medical care at all, of any kind, in this country. You can get it, but it’s a series of steps just to open the (locked) door into the specialty.
RandomMonster
@OzarkHillbilly: I guess I can say he doesn’t have immediate name recognition for the wrong reasons.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I had a great idea for a horror film/story! Any Juicer authors who want to take it and run with it are welcome to. Plot:
Red state surgeon is raped and nearly dies from ectopic pregnancy. Meets other wronged women in support group and plots revenge. They kidnap key people who passed the states extreme anti-abortion measures and implant fertized eggs on various organs in their bodies. On the way to a country without an extradition treaty, authorities and the media are informed where they are and what was done. They cannot get care wirhout breaking the law or leave the state for care.
Geminid
@sab: Before his remarks at the Cathedral, President Biden will visit the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Centre’s Family History Research Unit.
He plans to visit the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock earlier in the day, and then the Mayo Roscommen Hospice.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I love that you can be so opinionated with grandchildren, where with children you have to adopt this “fair” role, like an umpire.
The NY grandaughter got mad at the Denmark grandaughter over Christmas because …18 month olds are careening chaos agents and the NY grandaughter is a little older and more mature. Her parents (of course) have to lecture her- “she’s younger, be patient don’t be unkind” but I told her (privately!) “oh, she’s OUTRAGEOUS! No wonder you’re mad”.
Layer8Problem
@RandomMonster:
I have to confess that my brain sees “JB Pritzker” and goes from “That asshole? He’s a Thiel-propped dork and TFG will crush him in the non-primaries (J.D. Vance)” to “Oh him, I like him, the Farmers’ Insurance commercials are a hoot and he did a great job in Counterpart (J.K. Simmonds)” to “Wait a minute, isn’t he dead? (G.D. Spradlin)”. Then I realize “Oh yeah, him; he’s doing a good job and I didn’t think billionaires could do that. I have to pay more attention to Illinois.”
OzarkHillbilly
@RandomMonster: He’s been the IL Guv for how long? Long enough for voters there and in next door states to know him. If he wants to run for Prez he’s gonna have to get out more.
sab
@Baud: Aren’t they five or six hours ahead of us?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@OzarkHillbilly: Fixing IL has been enough work. He’ll get out there for 2028.
Baud
@Layer8Problem:
I’d vote for JK Simmons.
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I thought of a remake of Casablanca, set in 2025 St. Louis. “Rick” would own a brew pub on the Mississipi water front; he also has a speedboat. “Ilsa” would be a friend with an ectopic pregnancy, and the Missouri State Police would be the Nazis trying to prevent her escape to Illinois for medical care..
Roger Moore
Except that the Democratic schedule has changed so the Iowa caucuses are no longer the first event on the schedule. That’s now the South Carolina primary, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada. Campaigning in Iowa right now would only show a Democratic candidate was completely out of touch with the actual nomination process.
tobie
@Baud: Thanks. I read that, and the issuing of a competing opinion yesterday afternoon means that SCOTUS has to take the case but the composition of this SCOTUS does not inspire confidence. Loud sigh. I really don’t want to be a downer on a Friday.
LiminalOwl
@twbrandt: Yep. Even (maybe especially?) much older spouses.
Also too, “they’re still married” is even less of a win considering that the state law prevents them from divorcing before age 18. (Did I learn that here, or else-Net?)
Baud
@Roger Moore:
And be totally hilarious.
sab
@Kay: So jealous. It looks like the one granddaughter is all we will have.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: At 3, Addy girl is having some serious jealousy issues with her little sis Vivi who is now 1 1/2. Sometimes she just gets downright mean. My wife was an only child and only had 1 herself so I have to constantly remind her that it’s fairly normal behavior.
Layer8Problem
@Baud: Consider him as a running mate in 2024, unless of course you’ll also be filling the VP slot yourself.
LiminalOwl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: May I pass this along to a scriptwriter acquaintance? I doubt they’d run with it but at least they’d be amused.
Gvg
@Kay: you know what, Kay? That might be what some of this is about. Someone should look closer at the welfare of those loudest screamers kids, because there might be a problem. Not necessarily the problem they are shouting about, but at least that they aren’t listening to their own kid and that kid may feel desperate. Those screamers might sense that there is a problem and have supressed it or might think other people might criticize their parenting if there were allowed to be options.
Kay
@sab:
I may just have two! Which is fine. The NY grandaughter also has a huge (paternal side) family in Pittsburgh so she always has a packed calendar. You have to book her way ahead :)
Eolirin
@Baud: 2028 scares the fuck out of me.
LiminalOwl
And (one more thing before I start work) in the dept. of absurd-but-not-funny reactions to gender issues: a guy who sent death threats to Merriam Webster over such things is headed to jail.
OzarkHillbilly
DeSantis pleads with Florida Congress members to stop endorsing Trump
Awwwww… Pobrecito.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Geminid: Oh, I like that!
@LiminalOwl: Yes! Pass the idea along.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
It is normal and they’ll work it out. 1 and 1/2 year olds have that great self centered obliviousness so she’ll probably not even get her feelings hurt.
Geminid
@Eolirin: What scares me about 2028 is that in the meantime there will be all this good work by capable Democratic Governors and Senators that will not be appreciated for its own sake, but instead viewed through the lens of presidential politics.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Vivi laughs, tho when it’s painful she will cry. 2 minutes later she’s laughing again. Nothing gets her down.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: The job of a parent is SO VERY DIFFERENT from that of a parent.
Parents are trying to turn out good, healthy, well-adjusted, empathetic humans..
We grandparents get to have a good time conspiring with the kids against those parents.
Kay
(multi level marketing, for those unfamiliar with it)
They themselves recognized this in 2012. After Romney lost they did this eval where they said they had too many grifters who treated their base like an ATM. It’s 10X worse now.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
oh the unfairness of “she’s being bad and I got in trouble for saying it” – I just sympathize
Eolirin
@Geminid: As long as our media continues to be broken, politics will only ever be viewed through the lens of society gossip, so that’s rather unavoidable.
If the current demographic shifts hold up, at least those will be on our side. But there won’t be a Trump and there’s no clear viable candidate post-Biden either, because as much as I want Harris to be president, I’m not sure if she can win the Midwest. Biden only barely pulled it off, and while we did really well there in the midterms, Ron Johnson still somehow managed to get re-elected, despite all the statewide races going the other way, and despite Barnes being a solid candidate.
I’m not sure the country is ready to elect a black woman with a Jewish husband. I am terrified that the primary is going to be a shitshow. And the GOP is likely to finally be Trump free, though I’m not sure if that helps or hurts them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin:
It’s 2023. Come on. We have 2024 to try to win first. Following that, prospective candidates for 2028 will begin to emerge. But can we just do 2024 first?
OzarkHillbilly
I wonder how the long time voters for the Leopards Eating Faces Party are going to react to this?
No doubt they will insist that the leopards would never eat their faces.
Quiltingfool
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Hmm, I think this was done – maybe in the show Blacklist? Doctor was raped, denied an abortion, had the baby in prison. As revenge, she and her group of supporters, kidnapped a few prominent forced Birthers (preacher, Senator) and was able to cause these guys to be pregnant and actually have a child! They kept the men for a few months, then released them. The men refused to talk to anyone about why they had disappeared from public life.
Preacher kept the child (black man, white baby). The Senator went to NY for an abortion after he was denied an abortion in his state…where he was the ringleader in abortion restrictions.
The sperm donor for these kids? The doctor’s rapist. He was kept chained up in her basement.
Boy, howdy, that episode really strained credulity. Like, “Um, no, don’t really think ANY of this is plausible.” but the revenge angle was quite satisfying.
Kay
It’s a Trump attack ad on DeSantis for “cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security and even raising our retirement age””
Trump is just going to beat the shit out of DeSantis for months and there isn’t a thing DeSantis can do about it. It’s great.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Best name EVAH!!
zhena gogolia
@twbrandt: It’s okay, we all do it!
NotMax
@Kay
Unleash a covey of health inspectors to check the kitchens of Mar-a-lago?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I’d vote for G. D. Spradlin! He was great in Godfather 2.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: I love it!
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Netanyahu himself is bad enough, but his 14 Knesset allies in the National Religious bloc are making his government intolerable to most Israelis, and to just about everyone outside of Israel..
Lapassionara
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you! I think we look at the person giving the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Remember how Barack O’Bama gave the keynote speech in 2004, and 4 years later became the party’s nominee for president?
narya
@NotMax: Whoa. Those are totally gorgeous. I’m tempted to get one for my mom.
Frankensteinbeck
@Eolirin:
The US will be a completely different place in 2028 with an electorate we don’t recognize and can’t predict, and candidates we’ve never heard of. Worrying about it now is a mug’s game.
NotMax
One month from today.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Since this is an open thread, as your WTF? moment in American History, I present the movie The Sheik 1921, which made all the women at the time swoon and Valentino the first male romantic lead.
Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
But it turns out the Liberal Elites of Hollywood toned down the original material.
And let us keep in mind this is 1921, the height of the KKK in American history, which was presenting themselves as on a crusade to protect American womanhood from perverts, communist, brown people, union members and Catholics.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: 2024 is all about who the Republican nominee is, and whether Biden’s support in the Midwest has eroded. I like our chances. 2024’s bigger fight is going to be over the Senate.
Baud
Why is no one talking about the 2036 matchup?
Kay
@NotMax:
I read MAGA War Room Twitter. Some of these attacks are going to land. I think Trump is the best pick for Democrats and I just loathe Desantis so in this fight I’m rooting for Trump.
What do any of them do when he attacks them? He has twice the base support that they do. They can’t fight back.
Eolirin
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s why it’s worrying! If it was predictable it wouldn’t be as concerning.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: My husband watches CNN occasionally on our streaming service, and that attack ad comes on A LOT.
I also read somewhere that the DeSantis people are calling GOP pols who represent FL districts in DC to ask them NOT to endorse Trump after a whole bunch of them did. DeSantis is supposedly really peeved that Byron Donalds endorsed Trump after DeSantis campaigned for Donalds and helped his fanatic wife stock a local schoolboard with Moms for Liberty kooks.
The infighting is so entertaining! I’m sure Rick Scott will kick DeSantis in the slats if he gets an opportunity, but cowardly Marco Rubio will probably wait until an outcome is certain before getting on board.
ETA: Different ad from the MAGA War Room one you linked, which is hilarious! The one I’ve seen on CNN slams DeSantis on Medicare, etc., but lacks the pudding bit, lol!
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m jealous.
Mai Naem mobile
@Baud: who is Elijah?
Kathleen
@Baud: Yes I believe Josh Duggar will be out of prison and available for a Presidential nod on the Rethuglican ticket!8
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
Obligatory?
;)
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
He’s on Twitter and he paid for a blue check mark, so he must be someone important.
Eolirin
@Baud: There won’t be 2036 elections to worry about if we lose any of the intervening ones. :p
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I wonder what Trump does with Nikki Haley. I don’t think she has the “cut entitlements” baggage of DeSantis. It doesn’t matter that much- she isn’t a real threat to him- but I’m curious.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Trump just ruins the Right’s message on cutting entitlements, too, so I feel like his sucker supporters are paying for a liberal message.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Because I’ll be dead by then?
Geminid
@Mai Naem mobile: Elijah is some would-be pundit featured towards the end of the post. He’s one of the many who toss Crabapples of Discord in hopes Democrats will fight over them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lapassionara: and a year earlier he was some obscure state senator from the South Side who was running for Senate in spite of his opposition to our bigly successful Iraq Wa
@Betty Cracker: in DJTJ’s latest cocaine-fueled video he apparently (I can never bring myself to hit play) goes after DeSantis for being on a book tour while Florida is under water.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Quiltingfool: I didn’t know! I haven’t watched Blacklist. My idea gets more to the idea, though, of being forced to carry a non-viable fetus that will likely kill you. Unlike a uterus, other organs aren’t designed to support the fetus. It will damage them.
Ken
For, or against?
Ksmiami
@New Deal democrat: Garland is the wrong man for the job. A glaring mistake considering where we are now. And I’ll never think otherwise Omnes.
Ken
Well, duh. Obviously a 12-year-old isn’t emotionally mature enough to decide to end their marriage.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
DeSantis can always attack Trump for undermining democracy and trying to overturn the election.
Hahahaha.
raven
I was really down on Wounded Warriors because they were a real ripoff outfit back in the day. That said apparently they cleaned house and are much better now.
Eolirin
@Baud: Nah he could just attack him for being a loser. But he’s too chickenshit for that too.
Burnspbesq
@New Deal democrat:
Another irrational Garland hater heard from.
jonas
Word. These people seem to think that the process works something like this:
2:46pm on a Thursday. Child mentions that sometimes they feel like the opposite gender.
8:00am Friday: Penectomy scheduled at the drive-through gender clinic.
As you wrote, this is a long and often fraught journey for both the parents and the child and the idea that states are now telling parents that they can’t provide what they believe is the best care for their child is horrifying. We were very lucky to live in a blue state where gender affirming care is covered by insurance and so we could help our son. Thank God.
Roger Moore
@Eolirin:
There’s no clear single candidate who’s going to walk to the nomination, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think one of the big problems we had in 2016 was that everyone was scared away by Hillary Clinton, so she didn’t get well tested. That meant her very real flaws as a candidate- misogyny, entrenched hatred of her specifically, etc.- weren’t really tested.
Compare that to 2020, where we had a pretty wide open field. Yes, that could have been a shit show, but in practice it was a great chance to see who was a capable candidate and who wasn’t. We didn’t know in advance that Biden would be as good as he was, and the primary gave him a great chance to show his stuff. It also gave some unsuccessful candidates, like Harris and Buttigieg, a chance to show their stuff on a national stage.
Basically what I’m saying is I don’t like primaries that are just a formality for the heir apparent. That didn’t work well for us in 2000 or 2016. In contrast, the wide open primaries in 1992, 2008, and 2020 turned out really well.
yellowdog
@Eolirin: Amen
jonas
@Burnspbesq: I keep waiting for these people to come up with an example where Garland has had a clear opportunity and the evidence to indict someone, but demurred on purely political grounds. They can’t. What they’re upset about is that he’s not out there making it rain indictments RIGHT NOW!!1! like Oprah giving away cars. You’re indicted! You’re indicted!
They want a liberal Bill Barr who will corruptly weaponize the Justice Department to punish our political enemies, and Garland’s just not up to it.
japa21
@jonas: And they wanted Obama to be an abuser of EO’s like Bush was. They want our leaders to be everything they complained about when the other party was in power.
Eolirin
@jonas: I get somewhat concerned by the whole, parents getting to choose what they think is best for their children framing, cause that’s the same thing that’s used to justify not vaccinating kids and gay conversation therapy camps.
Best standards of care should be the marker, not parental authority. Kids are people too.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think the panic over drag queens is actually about trans panic – they’re terrified that if their little boy sees drag queens and thinks it’s cool, maybe he’ll decide he’s a girl and it would be OK to be one.
And yeah, they only care about some people’s rights. Here in MO our terrible AG Andrew Bailey just issued “restrictions” on trans care that applies to trans adults! All based on that discredited “whistleblower” from the St. Louis clinic. The lie is that it’s “all about the children”, because it’s not. It’s about their panic and disgust over trans acceptance.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hahaha, good! I hope Trump spends the rest of his miserable life kneecapping DeSantis. It won’t reduce Trump’s karmic debt by a noticeable fraction, but it’s a public service nonetheless! ;-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There also seems to be a bedrock conviction that the obviously guilty are carted off to prison after an indictment
Layer8Problem
@zhena gogolia: He did a good job as the general giving Martin Sheen’s Willard his marching orders in Apocalypse Now, a small but important role.
UncleEbeneezer
@Suzanne: Yeah, anyone who knows or follows Transgender people who have transitioned knows that this easy-access myth is complete and utter bullshit. There are already multiple hoops that need to be jumped through in order to get GAC.
Eolirin
@jonas: Nevermind that the AG doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and there’s an entire bureaucracy that’s involved in making anything happen.
Barr didn’t manage to actually get any Dem politicians on anything. Just obstructed Republicans being held accountable.
It’s much easier to make things not happen than the reverse
You need DeSantis like top to bottom control of the system to start attacking your political opponents via the mechanisms of the state.
Roger Moore
@Roger Moore:
I should also point out that “it’s his turn” hasn’t turned out so well for the Republicans, either. It’s how they got McCain and Romney, while a very wide open primary is how they got Trump.
Wide open primaries are scary because you don’t know who you’re going to get, and the uncertainty is unnerving. They’re also an opportunity to see who is really viable and who isn’t. Coronations are reassuring because you’re getting a known quantity, but there’s no guarantee the known quantity is actually good. I’d rather accept the uncertainty and give the candidates a real vetting than just let the next person in line take their shot.
Subcommandante Yakbreath
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: If you read science fiction, Sherri Tepper’s The Fresco uses a similar idea for a subplot. Also, an eerily prescient work is her Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, which I just read this year.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: I think it is this (don’t want their sons to be girls because…Trans-Misogyny) and probably some fears about the possibility that they (the adult) might be attracted to Trans Women. That fear really seems to take up a lot of space in the minds of Cis/Het People (especially Men).
Eolirin
@Roger Moore: Counterpoint: Dukakis vs Bush 1.
jonas
What really annoyed me about 2020 was this stupid battle-royale kind of process where you had a dozen candidates on stage during debates and the MSM up there just grading them on the quality of their zingers in the 1-minute of actual speaking time they were allotted.
Geminid
@Baud: I had a dream about the 2036 election!
It was kind of murky (as dreams are), but I remember that it was the first under a new system that determined the winner through a ranked choice popular vote.
There were a lot of candidates. Senator Jon Ossoff was the Democratic nominee; his supporters worried about how many votes might be taken by Ro Khanna running on the Move-Sunshine-Justice-On Party ticket. Josh Hawley was the Republican, while Marjory Taylor Greene was the MAGA Party candidate. Tulsi Gabbard was the Libertarian Party standard bearer, and Taylor Swift led among the numerous independent candidates.
The first round was of course inconclusive and the second round was also, on account of double-crosses between various allies.
The third round was the shocker: on election eve, the major candidates triple-crossed each other by telling supporters to cast third place votes for an obscure commenter on an almost-top 100,000 blog. And so, because of a drafting defect in the election law, the US had its first SansCullotte Party President.
That’s when I woke up. In a cold sweat.
Soprano2
@Kay: Shoot, even for pretty straightforward things it’s a process. My pain doc says there is a new procedure she can do that she thinks will get rid of most of my lower back pain. This is the first time any health care person has told me they think they can actually get rid of some of it rather than just manage it. However, in order to access this treatment I first have to do a round of physical therapy, which means I have to go there and miss work for 8 or 10 sessions. They have helped me some with dry needling, which I’d never had before, but I doubt it’s going to get rid of my pain. I cannot imagine everything someone has to go through to access trans care!
UncleEbeneezer
@jonas: They are extremely dumb and you should ignore them. These people don’t understand the simple truth that DOJ investigates CRIMES, NOT PEOPLE! They don’t go through a rolodex and say “hmm, who shall we investigate today?” That would be an absolute nightmare for anyone who truly believes in a fair and blind justice system. That is the exact opposite of what anyone who values the goal of equal justice under the law, should want. DOJ also doesn’t announce investigations except in very specific circumstances. We have no way of knowing if they have looked into potential crimes by GOP Politicians or even SCOTUS members already. I mean they seized Scott Perry’s phone and we wouldn’t have known it if he didn’t leak it.
Baud
@Geminid:
What the hell did Cole do to make us fall so far in the rankings?
Ken
Dammit, just before Baud tore off his face and revealed he’s really Harold Stassen. Or Cthulhu.
jonas
@Eolirin: That’s a good point and I think, as you suggest, the difference is standard of care evidence — trying to pray away the gay or not vaccinate your kids has demonstrable negative impacts on kids’ lives. They turn into psychological basket cases or contract potentially deadly diseases. Providing holistic gender-affirming care for teens saves lives and, unlike not vaccinating your kids, doesn’t endanger anyone else’s.
Belafon
@PresidentIRL = President In Real Life? /sarc
Anyway
@Geminid:
You need to follow fewer lefty people on Twitter!
Eolirin
@UncleEbeneezer: Toxic masculinity is under increasing threat from the recognition of the value of female coded behaviors and qualities for males, which has so far been a far less successful effort than attempts to reduce the gatekeeping of women from male coded qualities and spaces, but is finally starting to get some traction.
It’s why they’re also freaking out about social emotional learning and teaching kids to be kind to each other instead of allowing bullying to happen.
When you define masculinity primarily as a rejection of femininity anything that makes feminine qualities acceptable is a huge threat.
That people are naturally composed of both sets of qualities because they’re intensely stupid lines to draw in the first place just means there’s always some level of repression, fear and shame going on.
Trans people are the most direct expression of how utterly ridiculous our gender coding is. Just by existing they threaten the idea that being born with a penis means you have to be a certain way. And if it doesn’t, identities built up on, and held to despite the underlying wrongness that that creates throughout a person’s life, collapse.
Most humans respond very violently to identity threatening events. We’re hardwired for it.
Geminid
@Baud: It wasn’t Cole’s fault. A lot of Chatbots started blogs so they could talk to each other.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
Border Patrol is the most fascist LEO in this nation, bar none. I was shackled in chains because the other guy in the truck had a joint, not me. All the agents spoke Spanish among themselves, no way for me to tell what they were planning, out in the West TX desert at midnight. I was in fear for my life, actually, as I was trucking machinery worth thousands of $$ across country.
So I can relate to Spawn’s discomfort, well earned !
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: Pizzaballa?!?! PIZZABALLA?!?!?! I realize (being of italoamericano distraction myself) that half the surnames coming out of The Boot, The Triangle** and Sardonica look like self-parody, but this, this sounds like something out of a SNL sketch. Gesummariagiuseppe!!
** La Trinacria = Sicily. For obvious reasons. Go check a map.
Roger Moore
@Eolirin:
So there’s basically been one election since the modern primary process was rolled out where “it’s his turn” has returned a winning candidate. Put me firmly in the contested primary camp.
@jonas:
Rule 1: ignore the MSM as much as possible, particularly on stuff like how they grade the debates. I don’t think most voters pay them a lot of heed, and political junkies like us would be wise to follow their example.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
Cthulhu 2036: why vote for the lesser evil?
Kay
@Soprano2:
In general, I don’t think one has to worry about parents who are paying this much attention to their children. If they’re jumping thru all the hoops that Suzanne describes they’re doing a lot of thinking and weighing and asking. The rest of us don’t need to act as supervisors and managers.
Eolirin
@Roger Moore: You can make an argument for Bush 2 being uncontested on both sides which muddies that comparison. And since this only applies clearly in situations where there isn’t an incumbent on either side, since the incumbency benefit is clear and significant, there haven’t been that many elections since the modern primary to draw conclusions from.
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Believe it or not “The Blacklist” did an episode kind of like that. I can’t even describe the plot, but it involved an imprisoned rapist and implanting embryos into anti-abortion men. It was bizzare for sure.
UncleEbeneezer
@Eolirin: Yup. Well said. And you can substitute Whiteness in for Masculinity and I think it works as well. People are freaking the F out because they are realizing that Gender and Race really are social constructs with Masculinity and Whiteness being almost entirely built on opposing Non-Men and People Of Color, respectively. I often like to ask the question: what is White Culture once you remove everything that is just anti-Those People? Similarly, what is Masculinity that isn’t just anti-Feminism/LGBQT? Note how things like Men supporting and empowering Women (and Transgender/NB) is rarely framed as being an expression of Masculinity. Indeed, any of us who proudly stand with Women/Trans/NB people, immediately have our Masculinity called into question just for doing so. Masculinity (and Whiteness too) are both centered around exclusion. They are “I don’t know what we are, but we sure as hell ain’t them!” (pointing at Women, PoC, LGBTQ etc.). I think a lot of what we are witnessing is psychological struggle of people realizing that their identity is empty and mostly based on bullshit as their identities are also losing power and privilege. And lashing out because they know no other way to respond.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: Wow, you were able to describe that crazy episode, I couldn’t do it. That’s the first time I’ve had sympathy for a Blacklister.
rikyrah
@Eolirin:
Barnes did a number of self-inflicted wounds. He didn’t reach out to some groups that he should have, particularly in the Black community.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I’m guessing he’ll just ignore her.
Ohio Mom
@NotMax: Sorry to be so blunt but at this stage of the game, anything we give our parents is going to be ours within a few years.
I swear that is why BIL and SIL bought MIL that hand blown glass bowl after they asked us what MIL might like for her birthday and I said she could really use an electric tea kettle and they said, We have one, we love it!
The reason Ohio Dad and I did not buy the electric tea kettle was that we had two other useful-for-a-91 y.o. gifts already purchased. I am thinking we will buy one for Mother’ Day. They can buy her another object d’art for their collection.
So if you like it for yourself (it is cool looking), whip out that credit card.
Ohio Mom
@sab: Tsk, tsk, an unaccompanied minor — so were two of my grandparents.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: I think it all goes deeper than that. Transphobia, drag queen bans, abortion, and contraception all all tie into the belief pushed heavily by straight white Christian men that everyone should conform to Biblical gender roles. Which is to say gender roles that, by happy coincidence, put straight white Christian men at the top and makes everyone else subservient to them.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
Nonetheless, I wish there were a weeding process earlier in the calendar, so that normies would have more time to pay attention to a handful of legit candidates, rather than having to either sort through a dozen or more, or just ignore it.
Right now, the run for the nomination lasts nearly a year and a half. The 2028 nomination campaigns will start in January and February 2027, and the conventions won’t be until July and August 2028. Yet the primaries and caucuses are still in a five-month span of the election year.
I’d love to see some small states have their primaries in mid to late 2027 in that cycle. Let NH have theirs in July 2027, and leave behind all those stories about candidates tromping through the snow. Follow it up with maybe Delaware in September. With the general attitude of the party and the leading candidates towards both being “we’re not taking this very seriously in terms of the leader board, but it does give some of the lesser candidates an opportunity for a reality check.” Maybe have the top candidates skip them entirely.
Citizen Alan
@UncleEbeneezer: I had a very good friend up to about 10 years ago who once confessed to me that he was bisexual and was attracted to trans women. (He didn’t use that word back in 2007, of course.) Since then, we grew apart, and he became a cop and then married a young woman with big Baptist hair and two children from a previous marriage. So while I don’t know for sure, I suspect he would today deny that we ever had that conversation and his computer has been fully scrubbed of all the trans porn he used to watch.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m thinking not so much the party as a whole, but white evangelicals specifically. They’ve been in Israel’s corner for so long because (a) they believe (kinda sorta) that Israel will hasten the End Times, and (b) Israel was beating up on Ay-rabs, which they’re fine with. But beating up on Christians…not so fine. Should be interesting to see their reaction.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: They won’t care. If anything, they’ll deny that the Christians being persecuted in Israel are real Christians because if they were, they’d have moved to America already. Why would any Real True Christian want to live in a country that’s going to be Ground Zero when Jesus comes back to finally exterminate the Jews once and for all.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: That’s Trump’s only (dubious) virtue, in my eyes…he’s just as vicious to other Republicans as he is to everyone else he considers an enemy. At least with the Republicans, his insults tend to have the sting of truth in their tails.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
Even if one of them prevails and it isn’t Trump, Trump will ding all of them up before they ever get to a general.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: And the thing that kills me, is that all these Republicans, who are just as vicious and bullying to everyone they’ve Othered as not being worthy of care or empathy or good government, just stand around blinking their big stupid eyes like poleaxed oxen when Trump goes after them. That Karma, what a bitch, amirite?
UncleEbeneezer
@Citizen Alan: There is tremendous Transphobia in secular/atheist spaces too. Prominent Atheist assholes like Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne, Ophelia Benson, etc. started eagerly supporting Transphobia and even argued that it is a logical conclusion of Atheism, back in 2016, even before these conversations started becoming more mainstream, nationally. Like Islamophobia, these Atheists were all too happy to align with Christian bigots rather than support Transgender Rights. But they definitely don’t come at it from a place of Christian beliefs. Anecdata: I personally have known more Agnostics/Atheists that are Transphobic than Christians, mainly because I’m not really friends with Evangelicals, in general. But trust me, there are PLENTY of Transphobic non-believers.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
To me, the stereotype of “Muslim implies terrorist, terrorist implies Muslim” was always a little strange. My first memory of specifically Muslim terrorism was the kidnapping of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 olympics. I was 15 that year.
Before that, the news from Europe was dominated by bombings from various European groups, most especially the IRA.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The Christians whose beatings the Latin Patriarch speaks of are Arabs, and Catholic too. I’m not sure conservative American evangelicals would feel much solidarity with them. After all, no one is harassing Baptists or other evangelicals when they visit Israel, at least not yet.
It’s a story worth watching though. The two politicians mentioned in the article, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, are chaos agents who are doing a lot of damage in this and other areas..
Ken
The article says it’s the head of the Roman Catholic church, so yeah, not a True Christian™.
UncleEbeneezer
@Citizen Alan: I mean, the internet search numbers don’t lie and they have shown repeatedly in recent years that Transgender porn searches are VERY popular! Like, the kind of numbers that couldn’t be reached without a whole lot of straight people watching them too (which hey, why not? some of it’s hot!)
The interesting thing to me is that I’ve known tons of women who are attracted to women or like watching girl/girl sex, for all sorts of reasons, but who don’t identify as Lesbians, or date/F women. And that’s considered pretty normal, healthy and unremarkable. Hell, FMF threesomes and girl-girl experimentation are such commonplace college/young adult experiences at this point that it’s almost cliche. But if a Het Man is attracted to Cisgender Men or Trans Women, at all, they immediately are moved to Gay or Bi status. It’s like a weird one-drop rule/double-standard of Masculinity based on our societies deeply ingrained Homo/Trans-phobia. It definitely revolves around norms and expectations of Masculinity.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “Muslim implies Terrorist” they say, while completely ignoring the KKKlan.
Eolirin
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m not sure this is a separate issue from the toxic masculinity/whiteness defines itself as superior to and not other groups thing we were talking about.
Liking men is feminine coded behavior. Feminine coded behavior is not acceptable to even be accused of and requires a violent response or they’re conceeding that they are lower than being a man which is all they’ve got to keep their identity together.
The double standard is inevitable. The forced conformity on the women’s side has already broken down substantially, though there’s still plenty of work to do, and there are somewhat different dynamics at play moving from “subservient” to equal than there are from “superior” to equal.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Roger Moore: goddamn, i can’t BELIEVE we’re gonna rehash this stupid, stupid “heir apparent” bullshit.
there were FIVE other people who ran against clinton:
lessig
sanders
webb
chaffee
o’malley.
she wasn’t CORRONATED, she kicked ass and it only dragged on because commie doc brown wouldn’t quit the race when he had no mathematical path to the nomination and kept shivving clinton in the back with his “unqualified corporate whore warmonger” rhetoric.
google is your fucking friend.