This is perfect. When the press asks an absurd question like this, laugh and walk away. https://t.co/7yIrzVZunB
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) May 29, 2023
Reporter: Will this get done by June 5th?
Biden: Yes
Reporter: No question?
Biden: You guys realize you're not in the real world. There is no reason why it shouldn’t get done by the 5th.. pic.twitter.com/Fg4nbybDeV— Acyn (@Acyn) May 29, 2023
Reporter: What is the message to House Democrats that have reservations about this bill?
Biden: Talk to me.
Reporter: What would you tell them?
Biden: I'm not going to tell you
Reporter: Why not? pic.twitter.com/QgAtbWxZi2— Acyn (@Acyn) May 29, 2023
Across the gulf aisle:
Republicans in Disarray https://t.co/KXYGfh6H1i
— chatham harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison) May 30, 2023
Dispute is relevant now amid debt limit debate and as Roy and Norman expected to vote against the rule in committee tomorrow. https://t.co/6XaWopNnc9
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 30, 2023
And speaking of Texas Republicans…
A historic impeachment trial in Texas to determine whether Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton should be permanently removed from office will begin no later than August in the state Senate. https://t.co/9GkiZ7gAfP
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 30, 2023
the really weird thing here is that paxton has almost no notable accomplishments or positions that couldn’t be duplicated by a replacement level republican. anyone could do his job. they are supporting him specifically to support incredibly transparent autocratic corruption https://t.co/s1x4Byfk6t
— robert jackson bennett, pleasure craft (@robertjbennett) May 29, 2023
Tony Jay
I’m sorry, Ken Paxton is a Chevy Chase spoof character?
Makes sense, I suppose.
Matt McIrvin
They turned Oliver North into a conservative hero, too, and I wouldn’t have thought conservatives would approve of what he did, either (funding the Contras, yes–but selling arms to Iran after they’d humiliated the nation just a few years earlier?) But right-wingers’ hero-worship is infinitely flexible and they assume that anyone who makes the right noises who is in trouble is being unfairly persecuted.
Central Planning
That CNN article says the House Rules Committee has nine Republicans and four Democrats. How is it they get 69% of the people on the committee when the distribution in the House is close to 50/50? They gerrymander everywhere!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Suzanne
BIH you’re supposed to get that shit in writing. RECEIPTS!
eclare
@Suzanne:
BIH?
Suzanne
@eclare: It’s the generic, non-gendered abbreviation for bitch.
I guess that one syllable is so time-consuming that it needed to be cut down a bit.
eclare
@Suzanne:
Thanks, hadn’t heard that.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Matt McIrvin: They only liked him because he was an asshole during the Iran contra hearings. The other criminals who feigned no recollection or had the decency to stroke out like Casey were swept into their trash bin.
BretH
At some point do you think it will ever become clear to the Democratic doomsayers that Biden is really, really good at things like this? I have vivid memories many years ago watching Obama sit at a table with Republican leadership in Congress and absolutely owned them, so much so that the exercise was never repeated. It seems the same with Biden – can anyone name me a time when he hasn’t had the better result from any negotiation?
hells littlest angel
On the one hand, only an idiot would agree to that. On the other hand, Kevin McCarthy.
Geminid
@Central Planning: I wonder what the composition of the Rules Committee was in the last Congress, when Democrats held a similarly small majority.
In any event, the Rules Committee will meet today at 3 pm to prepare the bill for floor action, according to this morning’s Politico Playbook. It sounds like the bill will proceed with or without the votes of the 3 Freedom Caucus members.
The Democratic Caucus will hold a meeting at 9 am tomorrow, where White House officials Shalanda Young, Steve Rischetti, John Podesta, and Aviva Aron-Dine will brief members on the merits of the bill.
A 72 hour period for reading the bill expires at 7:13 pm tomorrow evening, after which the bill can be brought to the floor. I expect there will be time allotted for debate before the vote.
snoey
@Geminid: Last Congress the Rules Committee was a 9-4 Democratic majority. It is traditionally the Speaker’s pet committee and overloaded in favor of the majority
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: Is “bitch” gender-neutral now? I have to admit, it still makes me cringe. OTOH, I think of “guys” (as in “you guys”) as gender-neutral, so I guess I’m not consistent.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Heh, I’m the opposite. As a female, I hate being referred to as “you guys,” but then I grew up with and still say y’all. And I never gave much thought to bitch, but if “bih” is now the more acceptable word, I’ll adapt.
Sally
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Funny, I think of “guys” as gender neutral too. But people look at me strangely, or prompt me to say “and gals”. We are ahead of our time!
OzarkHillbilly
@Sally: Guys has been gender neutral since I was in HS, which was 50 years ago.
Ken
I cannot decide if this unusual precision is a good thing or a bad thing. Lawmakers often aren’t sure what’s in the actual text of the bill*, but they track the timing to the minute. It seems somehow dysfunctional.
* Or at least they say that afterward, when someone asks how it is that the bill calls for Billy Bob’s Used Motors to receive a $18,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security, and no one can figure out how that got into the bill.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@BretH: Biden can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Kay
It’s the difference between 12 an hour and 15 an hour, or 15 an hour and 19 an hour. It really doesn’t take much to improve their standard of living dramatically. Now that we did it with covid we know we can do it, right? Their wages can go up and the world won’t end?
Marleedog
He’s a badass superman
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
You know, I don’t know. I hear it thrown towards men more than I do toward women, probably. But it’s used differently. Toward men, it’s usually accompanied by “whiny, little” or something like that. Towards women, it’s used when they’re being tough and hard, arguably aggressive.
“BIH” I hear used in the context of “dumbass”, and though it obviously derives from a gendered insult, I never see it used as such. I think this one is now equal-opportunity.
“Bitch” seems so….. Boomer-y? I haven’t used it in years, maybe decades. “Bih” makes me laugh, it’s so ridiculous.
eclare
@Sally:
I don’t see “guys” as gender neutral at all.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Next they’ll shorten it to B. Then to P. Then I. Then it’ll disappear like a black hole.
Baud
@Kay:
That’s why Biden must go.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Suzanne,
Sorry for your loss 🙏🏽😞
Soprano2
@hells littlest angel: Who knows what McCarthy said when he was trying to become Speaker? If they didn’t get it in writing, though, they’re shit out of luck.
rikyrah
@BretH:
JoeyB ain’t new to this.
He true to this.😁😁
Kay
@Baud:
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: I’ve been watching old episodes of Hell’s Kitchen, where there’s a whole lot of casual sexism. When the men there call one another “whiny, little bitch,” to me, that means “you sound like a girl,” ie, it’s insulting to be called a girl. To be a girl is to be inferior. So I just noticed the term more.
I’d never heard bih. Now I’ll probably see it six times today.
rikyrah
@Kay:
It really is that simple, Kay
Suzanne
@eclare: “Guys” is absolutely gender-neutral to me, Which is weird, because there are guys named Guy. Which I have always found awkward.
“Dude” is not gender-neutral.
Geminid
Badger State Democrats and others might be interested in a long Politico Magazine piece on Wisconsin politics, published this morning under the title ” ‘We Got Our Butts Kicked.’ How the GOP lost Wisconsin.”
Author David Siders spoke to Republicans around the state, including one walking into the Fon du Lac County Lincoln Day Dinner who said. “the Republican Party is dead.” State Representative Donna Rozar also attended the dinner. She was not so pessimistic but she admitted that the political climate “is challenging.”
A former Fon du Lac County chairman summed up the problem:
Republicans admitted that abortion rights were the key issue behind Judge Janet Protasciewitz’s 8-point thumping of the Republican in the recent State Supreme Court race. Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler agreed, describing abortion as an issue “that blotted out the sun.” Siders observed, “And it isn’t going anywhere.”
Wikler described a shift in Democratic strategy that expanded outreach beyond reliable Democratic voters. It seems to have yielded good results.
Siders also interviewed Mike Crute, host of the progressive “Devil’s Advocate” show broadcast on a Madison radio station and syndicated elsewhere. Crute has teamed up with Madison tech entrepreneur Sage Weil to buy 18 Wisconsin radio stations. They’ve booted Fox News in favor of CBS and ABC radio news, and emphasized local content.
Mr. Weil said:
rikyrah
@Kay:
I find that stunning.
Great,but stunning
Suzanne
“Bro” is only for dudes. “Bruh” is gender-neutral.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suzanne: My eldest sister wore the “bitch” label with pride because being “tough and hard, arguably aggressive” was her default mode. No shrinking violet was she.
Eolirin
@Soprano2: Even if they got it in writing, unless it was enshrined in the house rules the paper isn’t binding and ain’t worth shit. The remedy would be the same as the one they have now which is a motion to vacate.
Sally
@eclare: No, I see that. I also use “y’all”, and the glorious “all y’all”, and will ensure I don’t refer to you as one of “you guys”. As with pronouns, I’m happy to accommodate people’s wishes.
Baud
@Kay:
That’s why Joe must be impeached.
Betty Cracker
From tweet above about Paxton:
There’s a lot of that going around. Entrenched Repub rule in places like TX, FL, MS, etc., have predictably resulted in massive levels of open corruption, and Trump showed them what that would look like on a national scale. Restoring that is their goal.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Agreed. “Bitch” is definitely gendered. I only see “Bih” used to insult someone’s intelligence.
LIKE CHIP ROY, YOU FUCKEN STUPID DIPSHIT!
mrmoshpotato
I can’t believe how senile Joe Biden is!
So senile that he’s sick of the media’s bullshit!
Geminid
@Ken: I kind of like 7:13. They’re both prime numbers!
Probably a coincidence, though.
Soprano2
@Geminid: A similar deal happened in FL over 18 radio stations in the south part of the state, and listening to R’s talk about it you’d have thought they were robbed of something that belongs to them! They seem to believe they have an absolute right to dominate the radio airwaves all over the U.S. I’m surprised they didn’t try to pass actual legislation to stop the deal. You know that’s what the freak out over car manufacturers removing A.M. radio from cars is about, right?
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Thank you. Mr. Suzanne and Spawn the Younger are heading out to be with his mom and brothers this afternoon, and I will join with Spawn the Youngest in a couple of days. Spawn the Elder is likely to drive in.
Eolirin
@Geminid: My god, we’re actually making some progress on the radio end of things? We need so much more of that, it’s been killing us. Radio and local tv need to be brought back to something resembling neutral if we want to have a chance of unfucking the information space.
Baud
Check your party registration, pal (gender neutral).
Ken
@Geminid:
Cue Stephen Colbert’s line about reality having a liberal bias.
The Republicans mourning their win in the abortion battle was delightful. I wonder how many of them would like to go back to Roe, which was at least reliable for fundraising and turning out the base?
eclare
@Suzanne:
Do you have to travel far?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Geminid: That’s interesting. Ben Wikler is fantastic.
I saw an R analysis of the 2024 election the other day, and the person said they didn’t expect abortion to be an issue. That person must not have been paying attention. They thought that in 2022 too, and even right after the Dobbs decision.
Ken
Well that’s good, because the grammatically correct form is “youse guys”.
Eolirin
@Soprano2: It’s a vital part of their propaganda network and if they lose it they could start to suffer real losses to control over the information space.
Baud
@Geminid:
We don’t need to convert people into liberals. We just need people to vote for liberal ideas, like abortion rights. You don’t need to be a lib to want people to be free.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Analysis as propaganda.
Jeffro
Paxton is a trump loyalist; ergo, he must be supported to the death and all who would see him ousted are traitors to the cult, full stop.
The trump cult’s rules are simple enough to understand, at least.
Suzanne
@eclare: Not too bad. They live outside of Fayetteville, AR. It’s just never a direct flight, and still usually means driving into an airport a couple of hours away. And we are still at the age that Spawn the Youngest requires a car seat. So some schlepping is required.
Eolirin
@Baud: I think that makes them liberals Baud, whether they’re comfortable with the label or not. We’ve always been a big tent and haven’t required everyone to agree on everything.
Being pro helping other people through government policy is the only real requirement.
eclare
@Suzanne:
Best of luck for easy travels during this time.
mrmoshpotato
@Sally:
Hehe
Baud
@Eolirin:
I think you can’t call someone a liberal based on a single issue, especially a fundamental issue like basic human rights or democracy.
ETA: Our support for helping Ukraine militarily doesn’t make us conservative, despite what some lefties on the Internet might argue.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
Oopsy poopsy! Have the slapdicks tried crying harder?
narya
So, I tend to think of “bitch” as gendered and I don’t like it–as noted above, when applied to women, it generally means “pushy” (sometimes with a dose of catty thrown in) and when applied to men, it generally means “like a female, and therefore, lesser/weaker.” (I realize many above have different understandings; merely providing mine as context.) I used to regard “guys” as gender-neutral (and I mostly still do), but working at an LGBTQ organization for a decade made me rethink that, so I generally opt for “campers” or “sports fans,” because neither is gendered and both signify a casual group, and, frankly, ALL genders are included (I worked with lots of non-binary folks). Basically, I generally look for words that don’t have any historical gender assignment (“asshole”), though I make an exception for “dick,” because I cannot find a gender-neutral word that captures that set of behaviors–I’m open to suggestions.
Ken
Does anyone know the origin of the picture of Paxton in the last tweet? Is it AI-generated, or a real painting (possibly by that guy who does the weird pictures of Trump as a Greek god)? Please tell me Paxton didn’t commission a portrait of himself as a Confederate officer.
Sally
@Ken: I think that’s a dialect
narya
@Sally: When I was a teen and met some folks from the south, I learned that “y’all” also has a plural–“y’all’s”–which amused me.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
It was the all caps that got me, like it was an acronym for something.
BellyCat
@Ken: Or, more succinctly (in Pittsburgh), “y’inz”.
Sally
@narya: Ah yes. You are correct. There are many forms of the second person plural of “y’all”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@narya: How was the race? We thought of you when someone here reported that a tire had come off and sailed over the crowd.
mrmoshpotato
@narya:
For very large amounts of y’all?
Prometheus Shrugged
@Suzanne: Dude is definitely gender neutral to teenagers. Our teenage son calls his mother dude. (Yes it’s slightly a joke for him but not much of one, since he calls all his female gamer friends dude as well.)
narya
@mrmoshpotato: No, it’s a possessive! I meant “possessive” not “plural.”
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It was a pretty good race–I kinda thought the end was bullshit (the rules around restarts, red/yellow flags, etc. aren’t super clear, and one lap at speed to determine the winner is tough), but otherwise it was fine. We weren’t sitting in that area of the track, and we’re pretty high up, so the tire flinging over the barrier wasn’t a danger to us–and was pretty unusual, as they have tethers on the wheels to prevent just that from happening. That said, there are a whole LOT of disclaimers on the ticket warning that Shit Happens.
ETA–correcting my correction.
mrmoshpotato
@narya:
:(
Jeffro
Btw highly recommended reading here about Christian home-schoolers who found the way out via their kids (who are in – gasp! – public school and are loving it)
Profiles in courage, for real.
Jeffro
Lapassionara
@Ken: that was definitely the correct usage when I lived in NYC.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m old enough to remember when “men” was considered general neutral. I was assured that it meant “mankind,” or, oops, human beings. I remember the day it dawned on me that it was no such thing. I read a newspaper article talking about “men,” and it suddenly was clear that the writer really meant male people only. I was not part of whatever it was the article was talking about. I’ve been suspicious of “gender neutral” terms ever since, especially if they start off as gendered, the way “guys” did. As I said, “guys” sounds gender neutral to me, but I’m still wary.
RevRick
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, man and men used to be gender neutral, until they weren’t… and rightly so.
Josie
@narya:
I live in Texas and here the plural of y’all is all y’all. Y’all’s is the possessive form.
Shalimar
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The context I see “bitch” most used in currently is as an insult to misogynistic guys who care about that sort of thing. So not really gender-neutral, because the whole point is calling them a word that they consider feminine and weak.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I think “men” traditionally did double duty, which made it convenient for the patriarchy.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The insistence in Strunk and White’s hallowed The Elements of Style that “he/him” are gender neutral kept writers wedded to these notions for far longer than they should have been.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Ah, not far from me! Air access to those places is hard. We once spent two days flying between Houston and Denver trying to get a flight to Springfield; we ended up flying to St. Louis and driving home. Do you usually have to fly to Little Rock?
Matt McIrvin
@narya: British people insist that the C-word is a gender-neutral insult with no misogynistic connotations (though I wonder about that last bit), whereas in the US it is more or less exclusively applied to women and is intensely misogynistic.
Geminid
@Soprano2: The freakout over AM is not just about right wing radio programming. There are real concerns about people who receive emergency information from AM radio stations. These are often older people who need it more than most.
And these stations do more than broadcast political shows. The Harrisonburg, Virginia station that I listen to does carry a couple hours of hours of Hew Hewitt 10am to noon, then two hours of three jocular conservative bros in the afternoon. The rest is local news, community goings-on. high school sports (“the Superior Concrete Game of the Week!), agriculture reporting, etc. WSVA is a mainstay of the Shenandoah Valley community.
The station has a wide reach, including a dozen West Virginia counties. That is why the FCC allows it to broadcast at higher power at night during emergencies.
I would add that the station carries CBS radio news at the top and bottom of the hour. Personally, I think that is a very good news source, better than a dozen podcasts and a much more efficient use of time. It also tends to balance out the conservative programming with fact-based reporting.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: No, it’s just me screaming at Chip Roy for being a TOTAL DUMBASS BIH!
Nukular Biskits
Mornin, y’all (he says timidly after reading the previous comments …)!
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: You’re right — there was a lot of angst over that sale in South FL, and I was kind of hopeful about it at first, but it seems like nothing changed. The freak-out was largely bullshit (Soros!), but the new owners followed through on their pledge not to change the programming, AFAIK. It’s unfortunate, but there doesn’t seem to be a market for liberal bloviating on the radio the way there is for “conservative” disinfo.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Usually I fly into Tulsa, because that airport is big enough to have multiple airlines. Have in the past flown into DFW and then taken a little plane to their regional airport (Bentonville), but that’s only an option on American. One time flew into Springfield, MO, on Allegiant, and I will never do that again.
I am spoiled and am used to being no more than 30 minutes away from a big airport with multiple options for airlines. Going to see my in-laws has always proven to be a bit of a schlep.
Falling Diphthong
…. Is “Biden should pardon Trump” a new right wing thing?
For any specific crimes, did they say?
Matt McIrvin
@Falling Diphthong: It’s been a thing that both-sidesy centrists propose as some kind of high-minded healing move ever since Biden got in.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
We need people to vote for liberal, or at least moderate, politicians, not just liberal policies. Part of the problem the Democrats have right now is there’s a substantial group of voters who will vote for specific liberal policies when they’re on the ballot but then turn around and vote for Republican politicians who will fight tooth and nail to void those policies by hook or by crook. The Republicans have somehow convinced people to vote against the Democrats even though they like the Democrats’ policies. If we can undo that, we’re in much better shape.
Manyakitty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I use “dude” as gender neutral as well.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: So was the bad experience Allegiant or Springfield? LOL I am used to living in a city that doesn’t have great airline access – for our New York trip we’re having to take a charter bus to St. Louis because the Springfield airport doesn’t yet have a direct flight to New York City. They’re trying to get one of the airlines to start one, but so far no luck.
ETA – you probably couldn’t get me on a really small airplane.
Miss Bianca
@narya: My dad was wont to address groups of all genders with the opening, “Now, girls of the Junior League…” which I always thought was hilarious.
ETtheLibrarian
I do not ascribe to the GOP are good people thing, but many of them are like many people and just want the drama to stop so they can continue to do what they normally do. Many will convince themselves that they got What They Wanted just so that they can just do what they know they need to, vote, and move on.
CliosFanBoy
@Matt McIrvin:
Even worse, he and his boss (General what’s-his-face) pocketed most of the money! He illegally sold arms to an enemy state, then stole the resulting money from anti-communist guerillas!
Ken
@Falling Diphthong: Many of the Trump crimes currently being investigated are state crimes, so they’ll have to settle for a blanket pardon for all federal crimes, past and future.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I appreciated you showing the video of the Turkish lady and her lamb at a polling station the other day. That was a nice, laid back scene amidst a very contentious election.
There’s been a lamb update:
Soylu’s tweet shows the lamb’s human back home from the polling place, stroking her now-famous pet’s muzzle. The lamb is wearing the orange flag of the AKP, Erdogan’s party.
Soylu also posted video of an exuberant Erdogan singing an “arabesque” song to a crowd of cheering supporters. The consensus among objective listeners was that he should keep his day job.
Hamlet of Melnibone
My 9-year-old daughter adamantly insists that I stop using “guys” to refer to her and her sister or her and her friends.
”Dad, we’re girls.”
After 40+ years of using “guys” as a generic non-gendered term, it is really hard for me to make the switch. I’ve gotten to the point where I remember about 75% of the time, but whenever they are misbehaving I revert back to “guys” in my haste.
I’m not sure what made it such a huge issue with her, but she corrects everyone she deals with on it. I’m waiting for the day an asshole teacher butts heads with her on it.
My 12-year-old couldn’t care less about it. She’s mostly annoyed that I am talking to her at all.
CliosFanBoy
Growing up in SW Ohio, I learned to say “You all”, two distinct words.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I appreciate the mass media we have, like some of the shows on MSNBC, but none of it appeals to me anymore.
Eolirin
@Baud: The political dividing lines are basic human rights and democracy. It’s why our support for Ukraine doesn’t make us conservatives.
It maybe shouldn’t be where the dividing line is, but conservatism has been dominated by fascist positions and liberals are anti-fascist and things really are that stark right now. If you’re anti fascist you’re a liberal. That’s certainly how liberal is defined by conservatives. I see no reason not to run with it.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Because a lot of voters we need see themselves as in the middle rather than in one of two camps.
JWR
Back in high school, my GF somehow got on someone’s “girls I hate” list, and after my GF’s name was the word, “bith”, to denote what she apparently was. We laughed, occasionally referring to this or that person as a “bith”. But I’ve never herd tell of this “bih”. Is it pronounced the way it’s spelled?
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: When I was growing up, the Reaganites had made “liberal” such a term of insult that people scrambled to find euphemisms. I think that’s part of the reason that so many people on the left who would still be liberals by any reasonable definition still identify as progressives or even socialists.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: You will never get me to say that Liz Cheney is a liberal. You will never getLiz Cheney to do it either.
Spanky
“Folks” is a perfectly cromulent gender-neutral term. Is it outdated? Do I care?
Thor Heyerdahl
@Ken: they will be rueing Roe?
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Allegiant is terrible. That trip was the only time I’ve ever taken it, and I will not do it again. We tried it because they had a route (I don’t think they have it anymore) from the tiny secondary airport outside Phoenix to Springfield, which is a bit closer than Tulsa to where my in-laws were living at the time. But it was so bad that I swore off it.
Springfield was…. fine. There was an IHOP near the airport and I was able to get pancakes at 10 PM, which was really what I needed at that moment.
Burnspbesq
Saw a billboard for a plaintiffs’ PI lawyer in South Philly over the weekend that cracked me up.
”YOUSE HURT?”
Suzanne
@JWR: Yes! It’s just the B plus a short I sound.
Urban Dictionary is hilarious: Bih.
Eolirin
@Baud: That’s a delusion when one side will happily throw them in the camps for being insufficiently pure. The middle doesn’t get to exist under these circumstances, and you can see it by the way that that middle is already being excluded by conservatives as being liberal. Or “woke”, which is the same thing to them.
@Omnes Omnibus: Liz Cheney is not pro-human rights or anti-fascist, she’s just anti-Trump. And even then, the pro-Trump people are going to brand her as liberal for not bending knee. I don’t really care what she thinks of herself. And it’s not going to save anyone what they call themselves.
She’ll be up against the wall with the rest of us if they take full control.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: That lamb better not come out as gay! ;-)
Baud
@Eolirin:
People with delusions vote. I want them to vote for us.
Eolirin
@Baud: Understanding that they’re being excluded by conservatives and have no common cause with them won’t help?
We need to help them get past their hangups voting for Democrats. That hesitation has little to nothing to do with policy.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Not if we demand they identify as liberals to do the right thing.
Roger Moore
@CliosFanBoy:
The unstated point in the background of Iran/Contra was that Reagan had cut a deal with the Iranians to prevent the hostages from being freed before the election. He was worried that Carter would somehow succeed in getting their release in time to serve as an October Surprise. Selling them arms was a quid pro quo for the election help. The media has been more than happy to forget the election help ever happened, so that part of the story is rarely discussed.
This is why nobody should be surprised about Trump accepting Russian help to win the election in 2016. Nixon did it. Reagan did it. Why not Trump, too?
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin:
While I don’t think your fundamental point that there are only two sides right now, I don’t think that labeling everyone who is not fascist as liberal is either correct or helpful.
Eolirin
@Baud: I don’t need them to identify as anything. It’s what they are whatever they call themselves.
And it’s what the conservatives are going to call them. If they can’t stand being called that they won’t vote for us.
CliosFanBoy
Here is a link to a US Army pamphlet they issued to our troops in Europe in 1945. It’s pretty good on “What is Fascism?”.
Link
And just for our own TonyJ, here is “The Yank in Britain.
Link
Jeffro
@Falling Diphthong:
It seems to be a recurring thing. As more and more trump indictments drop, it’ll be a frequently recurring thing. Maybe Fox and its correspondents are dumb enough to think it makes Biden look less bipartisan? Who knows.
(More importantly, the topic of pardoning trump will soon become a litmus test for all GOP candidates for president – one almost all of them will fail).
Baud
@Eolirin:
Then you agree with me. Dem policies aren’t just for liberal voters.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
That is fucking awesome.
Yeah, in a better world, that gap shouldn’t be statistically different from zero. But we’re not in that world, so this is terrific news.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s what the conservatives are doing. That’s already been set in the language now.
Geminid
@Eolirin: I remember Rush Limbaugh telling listeners that there was no such thing as a “moderate.” You were either a liberal or a conservative, he asserted
Ed. This was just a tactic. Objectively, I thought it was wrong and I still do.
Eolirin
@Baud: There are only fascist and anti-fascist voters in this country right now. The fascists call themselves conservatives and the anti-fascists liberals. It doesn’t really matter what the liberals call things.
Baud
@Geminid:
During his heyday, the goal was to consolidate power among white people. Us vs. them is a big part of that.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Allegiant is one of those budget airlines that often does tourist flights to Orlando or Fort Lauderdale from minor airports that might actually have no other commercial passenger service. I think they were trying to fly out of Pease in Portsmouth, NH for a while. I’ve heard nothing good about them.
Kirk
My daughter’s role model while an undergrad (mechanical engineering) was the ta others called ” the bitch who gets things done.” She said one of her proudest moments a couple of years later was when she received the same accolade.
It was not meant to be praise. It was grudging acknowledgment. And she found it all the sweeter for that.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I think DeSantis has already made mouth noises about pardoning Trump or at least considering it. Is there any reason to think the other pretenders to the MAGA throne would shrink from that? Maybe Christie or Hutchinson, who are explicitly disowning the orange fart cloud. I expect the others (and maybe even those two) will sleaze their way through that question by yapping about the weaponization of federal law enforcement, yada yada yada.
Baud
@Eolirin:
The last sentence undercuts the previous one.
Nelle
@Suzanne: several men, whose offices were near me, began calling each other “Dude” (this was several decades ago). One started to call me “Dudette.” I loftier told him he could only address me as “Dudessa.”
JWR
@Suzanne:
Thanks for the pronunciation! I’ll admit I don’t know much about English, the subject, but I really enjoy watching as it morphs and grows in all manner of ways.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: And the Right is wrong about that.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Oh, I totally believe that! When I heard this was happening, my immediate thought was, nobody’s on AM radio but right-wing ranters.
I have no idea why car makers are taking AM radio out – it can’t possibly be costing them much money. But I’m damned sure not complaining, and the fact that it upsets the wingnuts is a big plus.
cmorenc
@narya:
“Y’all” is commonly used in the South (with no appended ‘s’) can be flexibly used to be either singular or plural, depending on context of whether a single person or a collection of several people within listening range is being addressed, although “y’all” is most often used in the plural sense. An ‘s’ is only sometimes appended (“Y’all’s”) when the meaning is also possessive, e.g. coach speaking to soccer team “y’all’s shirts need to be tucked in”.
Native of North Carolina small town here, veteran of a zillion times using and hearing “y’all” in just about every context one could think of.
Eolirin
@Geminid: Exactly. I’m not saying we’re responsible for the current state of affairs. But it is the current state of affairs. There’s no point in trying to pretend that liberal means anything other than not fascist anymore. We can reclaim the distinctions after we beat the fascists.
Poe Larity
I blame Rita Moreno. Electric Company, 1971:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL6w5bRgZp0
RaflW
Our local angle from the big city daily:
Fischbach was elected in the recent MAGA/”why the f**k should we actually govern” wave, so I expect her to be a chaos agent. I kind of expect this deal either to fall apart because of GOP idiocy, or it gets thru and McCarthy is then swiftly deposed.
The latter is slightly preferred as we really do need the limit raised. But the replacement for Qevin will undoubtedly be worse.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s just a word. The meanings change. It won’t really matter that we want to quibble over how liberal means something other than what they think when they start rounding up liberals. We don’t get to argue the definitions of the hate group when the hate group gets to decide who they target.
There’s only the two sides right now. It doesn’t really matter what we call them. But this is what they’re going to call them. I don’t see a point in trying to fight that. It isn’t going to change anything.
Jeffro
Btw for those who can’t stomach it, here’s a shorter version of McCardle’s nonsense today:
Three reasons we’re stuck with Biden and trump:
Name recognition (yes really)
The electorate is getting older, and old folks like voting for old folks like themselves (yes, really!)
They both have sharp political skills because of their age, while young folks talk too highbrow (Yes, that’s it, really it!)
Now THAT is some darned-good political analysis, wouldn’t y’all say? LOLOL
Nothing about Biden being smack-dab in the middle of the center-left party. Nothing about the GOP’s collective action problem w/ trump, or its inability to value anything other than “owning the libs”. Nothing about Biden’s many successes, or the media’s inability to stop reporting on the horse race, etc etc.
Nope. Name recognition! Old folks liking their own! And those awesome political skills on…you guessed it…”both sides”.
(Come on, Post – you can do SO much better than this! I’m not even all that good at op-ed-er-sizing and I make better sense than this before I’ve had my morning coffee! I’ll work for $1 a week!)
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin:
As it happens, I do see a point to making the distinction. I we defining the fight as fascist versus not fascist, we have a better chance at getting the people who can’t bring themselves be liberals to choose our side in this fight. Your mileage obviously varies.
JR
Is that painting supposed to be Bolivar? Pedro II? Napoleon III?
I would say that the last guy is a pretty good fit for GOP ideals but he actually did accomplish a few things
Eolirin
@Baud: It doesn’t really. Our definitions are not adequate to the moment, but more importantly, we aren’t eliminationist and genocidal in our aims.
Hitler’s definition of Jew mattered during the Holocaust, not the Jewish people’s. It wouldn’t matter if the community didn’t view you as jewish by some aspect of jewish law. If the Nazis thought you were you were going to the camps and trying to argue that you weren’t by some technicality wasn’t going to save you. It never mattered that communists, lgbtq folk and labor activists were different groups when McCarthyism was dominant. They’ll come after us as if we’re a monolith regardless and if we don’t have solidarity with each other we will be broken apart and lose.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, Allegiant’s whole value proposition is that it’s cheap because they fly in and out of these little random airports. They do itemized charges for everything. That one time that we tried it, we had the kids with us, and by the time we were all done with all of the charges, it was no cheaper than Southwest or Delta or whatever.
We paid extra for two pieces of checked luggage, each up to 50 pounds. When we got there, the bigger bag was at 51 pounds, and the smaller bag was around 40 pounds. They made us take a pound of dirty clothes out of the bigger bag and put it in the smaller. Pro tip: both bags were going to the same place!
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: I have yelled “Dude!!” at inanimate objects like cars and laptops when they don’t do what I want.
Tarragon
As a male official in Roller Derby, it’s a primarily a female sport and both women’s and men’s teams very open to non-binary and trans skaters , I adopted “folks”.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s because I’m not optimistic about our ability to redefine those terms.
I personally think we have a better shot at weakening opposition to the word liberal, and using that to drive a wedge between people and right wing media than breaking them of the idea that anti-fascist is not liberal. If it’s easier to do the reverse, cool. But we will be fighting against the repetition on the right.
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s interesting that the meaning of the word bitch seems to vary depending upon whether it’s directed at women or men. A woman referred to as a bitch is loud, aggressive, and even ruthless. A man is referred to as a little bitch for being whiny, annoying, and weak. Gender politics are so weird in this country.
Juju
@Soprano2: The car manufacturers have removed AM radio? I thought they did already.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I agree that most of them will fall in line, “of COURSE trump should be pardoned, look at how the corrupt FBI/DOJ went after him”, yada yada.
I’m not sure any of them have figured out that this will kill them in the general election.
Baud
@Eolirin:
You’re missing my point. The right is irrelevant. For whatever reason, some people don’t want to be seen as liberal, noatter how it is defined. Last I checked, only half of Dems identified as liberal, and I’d imagine independents are even worse. I don’t want to tell them that voting for pro-choice, pro -democracy, pro-sanity, etc., Dems makes them liberal. I want to reduce psychological barriers to people voting for our candidates.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: Good God, even by that hack’s subterranean standards, that’s a steaming load of horse shit! I’d crank out a weekly WaPo column for a handle of Tito’s per month, and I guarantee it would be a superior product even if composed after chugging my pay. ;-)
Baud
@CliosFanBoy:
You broke the blog.
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan:
Me too. Usually followed by “DA HELL?!”
rikyrah
@Falling Diphthong:
Not just a right-wing thing.
Seen that bullshyt from ‘ concerned centrists’.
That bullshyt about ‘ do it for the betterment of the country…so that it can heal.’
Phuck outta here.
Barbara
@RaflW: Well, it will only be worse in the sense that someone might be even more likely to pound their gavel and shriek nonsensical questions even more loudly. But the reality is, nothing substantively is going to happen for the next year. Debt ceiling and budget are the only things that matter. And AFAICT, GOP’s balls are still in a vise controlled by Big Donors when it comes to those kinds of things.
In other words, there is no one that they could elect at this point who could accomplish more legislatively than McCarthy. They don’t have the will and they don’t have the talent to enact what they want from a minority position. I am still in awe of Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democrats for managing to save the ACA when they did not have a majority in either chamber for an entire two-year period.
Memory Pallas
@Dorothy A. Winsor: When “guys” became gender neutral for me.. I also had a colleague in the 1990’s who addressed me as “dude” ( she was from LA) and I kinda liked it.
topclimber
@JR: Maybe it is a uniform from the days of the Lone Star Republic, Sam Houston vintage.
Baud
@Baud:
We have a similar problem with young liberals who refuse to identify as Democrats for psychological reasons.
rikyrah
@Eolirin:
this this this
it’s democracy vs fascism.
that’s it. this is now the dividing line in America. Pick a side.
Eolirin
@Baud: And my point is that the right is already telling them that voting for pro-choice, pro-democracy, pro-sanity candidates, or really Democrats of any policy position, makes them liberal and it won’t mean a damn thing for us to say otherwise.
If it’s okay to be liberal then they can be broken off the cult
Ladyraxterinok
@Geminid:
My dad’s maternal grandfather moved with his family from the Shenandoah Valley to Iowa in 1849 when he was 7 years old.
When he fought with the 11th Iowa Infantry in the Civil War, he had relatives in the Valley who were in the Confederate army
Baud
@Eolirin:
I think we fundamentally disagree about the psychology of voters who don’t identify as liberal.
Citizen Alan
@Prometheus Shrugged: Now that I think about it,. I am pretty sure that I only use the word dude as an expletive. As in, when someone male or female does something that offends or outrages me, I might exclaim “DUDE!” On the other hand, if I were to say ” Look at that dude walking down the street,” I am clearly referring to a male. Except that I would never use the word dude in that sense because it is not the 1970s nor am I a cowboy.
cain
@Kay: This is why the GOP is working so hard to pwn democracy – the non-whites are catching up, labor is catching up – all the old common old wisdom is being thrown out ! Dogs and cats are living together! IT’S ALL COMING DOWN!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin:
You are fighting a 40+ year campaign to make liberal an insult. Easier in my mind for us to be welcoming by saying “You’re not a liberal? Fine. Not fascist is just fine.” It’s why I will welcome the votes of the Never Trumpers and make common cause with them, I won’t pretend that we agree on much not ask them to do so.
Geminid
@RaflW: I don’t think Republicans can replace McCarthy with a Freedom Caucus member; the other 3/4s of the caucus won’t stand for it. They could still elect Scalise, but what would be the point?
Calls for ditching McCarthy may be cooling down anyway, or at least that’s what Politico Playbook reported this morning. It may be that the Democrats have promised to help defeat a motion to vacate the Speaker’s Chair.
And if McCarthy is removed, there is no guarantee that the next Speaker would even be from the current Republican membership. A half dozen fed-up Republicans could get the Democrats to agree on a “caretaker” speaker like the recently retired Tom Reed (NY). That would ensure that vital legislation could reach the flow, and leave the rest of the Republicans to stew in their own juices. Democrats would get their own Speaker soon enough, in January, 2025.
eclare
@Baud:
That is how I identify if asked, I’m a Democrat. But I am not young.
smith
Yeah, they said that about Nixon’s pardon, and funnily enough, things got worse.
cain
@Suzanne: yes, and the folks in this country will mis-pronounce it as ‘Guy’ rather than ‘Ghee’ :D I didn’t know the pronunciation until like two years ago so I’m not one to talk.
brendancalling
Joe IS a crafty old dude, but it’s a lot easier to be crafty when your opponents are so fucking STOOPIT.
Barbara
@Jeffro: I cannot think of a single better journalistic example of “failing upward” than Megan McArdle. I don’t bother to read her at all anymore — in addition to being wrong, she is trite and unimaginative. I can’t even give her the grudging compliment of having the “integrity” (if benighted) of the “true” believer conservative opinion class (e.g., Marc Thiessen). She manages to be lightweight, stupid, and uninteresting. Why does she have a job purporting to give us her non-existent “insights”?
Barbara
@brendancalling: I don’t know if I agree with that. There are an awful lot of people who think that obvious stupidity will be its own worst enemy and therefore fail to show up for the fight. A lot of those people inhabit the leftward side of the political spectrum.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: Hmmm, I never knew that the British said “Gheee” Fawkes and asked for a “Penny for the Gheee.”
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I took one of their flights to Los Angeles once. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either, and being able to have a direct flight was a big bonus for me. A lot of people here use them to go to Florida and Las Vegas. For an airport like ours they’re not a bad airline.
Geminid
@topclimber: Maybe it’s Paxton’s ugly mug photoshopped onto a portrait of Sam Houston, hero of San Jacinto and first President of the Republic of Texas.
BC in Illinois
@CliosFanBoy:
My mother, a WAC in London 1943-44,* said that they were told –if the nature of the currency became complicated– not to ask “What is that in real money?”
+ + +
*My other Mom-the-WAC story is from 1995. Apparently somebody at church was going on and on about the 50th anniversary of V-E Day. The woman was in NYC on that day and “You can’t imagine how exciting it was, etc, etc.” Mom (being an nicer person than any of her children) just nodded politely. She didn’t have the heart to one-up her, with : “Oh. On V-E Day, I was in Paris.”
narya
@Baud: I’m on your team. My friend grew up in WI, when the R governor worked to preserve natural resources. He stopped voting after Iran/Contra. I’ve been working on him for years, and at least he votes now. He still rails about hating the two-party system, about how he doesn’t want to be one or the other, etc., and his family are all Rs. But I don’t focus on whether he’s a “liberal” or a “democrat” or whateverthefuck–I expose him to Chris Hayes, and he listens to Democracy Now, and I talk him off the ledge. And he now votes, reliably, for Our Side (he hates the meanness of the Rs, and the god-bothering, etc.). I DO NOT CARE that he won’t register as a Democrat–he votes as one.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Frenchies were insisting on it under the EU’s ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ rule. It was a major driver of Brexit amongst the stuffed mannequin and pyromania set.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe there are generational differences, and we need to use both approaches. But there’s been a long term effort to reclaim the word and it seems to have been working. Younger people are not adverse the same way. And I think it shows in their support for Democrats.
But it really messes up their propaganda methods if there’s a permission structure to see yourself as liberal or at least liberal aligned. If you’re okay with being labeled liberal and you try to tune in to right wing media, they’re going to be saying things that you’re going to view as directed at you, and that are clearly untrue and it’s very easy to tune back out. If you’re avoiding that association, despite having inclinations that would put you into categories that they’ll slam as being liberal, it’s far easier to view that as talk about other people. And other people are easy to make scary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay:
FWIW Fawkes signed his name as “Guido.” How Remainer is that?
Eolirin
@Barbara: McArdle and many other pundits could be replaced by current day generative AI and no one would be able to tell the difference.
Kathleen
@Baud: First they came for the B and I did nothing.
Eolirin
@Baud: It’s entirely possible we’re describing two different groups of voters.
And much of my view on this comes from being forcibly exposed to right wing radio from time to time.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve always believed that’s because conservatives enjoy having things they already believe repeated back to them over and over, which is really cheap and easy to do. Liberals want to learn new things (and want them to be accurate) which takes actual effort, and skill at more than just speaking.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Do you think any other airline would treat you better? I doubt it.
RaflW
@Soprano2: “If they didn’t get it in writing, though, they’re shit out of luck.”
indeed, a gentlemen’s agreement requires both the first and last word in that phrase to operate. We all know it’s between 0-50% there.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I have never been told to take my clothes out of one bag to put them in the other by any other airline.
Tony Jay
@CliosFanBoy:
Oh, that’s awesome. I particularly liked:
“Really to cope with the Americans successfully, it is necessary to do something which is exceedingly distasteful to British manners – ask personal questions.”
And I didn’t know that:
“A really successful date (for an American) is one in which the boy asks for everything and gets nothing, except a lot of words, skilful, gay, witty words.”
The world before American TV conquered all before it seems strange and foreign.
@BC in Illinois:
I was born just after the money changed over and became comprehensible. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve had my folks explain the pre-decimal nonsense to me, it always ends up with me going cross-eyed and wondering why they didn’t just barter with guinea pigs, gerbils and ferrets instead, for simplicity.
dww44
@brendancalling: The most liked comment (over 5M comments) at this WP article examining why Republican women still support Trump after the E. Jean Carroll verdict:
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Indeed. It would be ‘we’re letting him off the hook because he’s a big shot with a big fan club.’
Right now, the DOJ and prosecutors in NY and GA have the best opportunity in decades to make a statement that NO ONE is above the law. Pardoning Trump would gut that, at a time when that principle is in desperate need of being re-established.
Redshift
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh, I remember distinctly when that happened in the mid-2000s. People came up with the idea that by calling ourselves progressive instead we could escape conservatives’ demonization of the word liberal. I thought it was dumb and have always been a liberal.
Then came the idiocy from the leftists of insisting that liberal and neoliberal were the same thing in their own attempt at demonizing the term. 🙄
Ceci n est pas mon nym
It helps that he’s a genuinely nice, caring guy. But for me the real draw of Biden is his years in Congress. He knows the rules, he knows how things are really accomplished, he knows how to work the back rooms. I’m still a little puzzled for how any kind of debt limit deal is supposed to make it past the Idiot Caucus, but I have utter faith that if Joe believes he can get it across the finish line, he will.
He is the guy we need right now while there’s a Republican majority.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bloody Catholics, coming over here, trying to murder our mostly Scottish, partially French, a little bit Italian Kings. Burn the lot of ’em.
dww44
@Geminid: Why is it that Republicans have such a love affair with romanticising via photoshopping the very worst of themselves? It is just so fake. But maybe it does help explain why they are such gullible voters and citizens.
Thor Heyerdahl
@cain: there is the story of the former Anaheim Ducks goaltender Guy Hebert who was born in Troy, NY.
Growing up his name was pronounced very American “Guy Heebert”
As soon as he made it to the NHL everyone assumed he was from Quebec, so his name pronunciation changed to a French sounding “Ghee Ehbair”.
Redshift
@Eolirin:
I’m not sure about that, there might be noticeable improvement.
patrick II
@Sally:
How about “you’se” ?
Geminid
@Ladyraxterinok: A lot of Shenandoah Valley residents moved West. Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was an early one. He had a farm near Harrisonburg, but in 1780 he purchased property in Kentucky. In 1782 he packed up his family, moved them down the Valley Road* and then over the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky.
The Shenandoah Valley is the northern part of VIrginia’s Great Valley. This valley narrows somewhat but continues on to Bristol and east Tennessee. Extending north into Pennsylvania, this was a major thorofare for western settlers. The elder Lincoln was himself born and raised in Berks County, Pennsylvania. That was a common point of origin for Shenendoah Valley residents at the time.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Tony Jay: You mean a sensible system like measuring your weight in stone (I dunno my weight in pounds but it’s the same as these three big rocks at the end of the driveway) and your horse’s height in hands (yes, I told you the horse was 20 hands high. You didn’t ask whose hand, did you?)
I’ve seen old ledgers with sums done in pounds, shillings and pence. I don’t know how any business ever got done.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@patrick II: I think a lot of people are familiar with the Pittsburgh “yinz” and the Brooklyn plural “youse”. I learned on moving here to the Philly suburbs (same area popularized in “Mare of Easttown”) that there’s a local “youse” or “yez” which is singular. In diners it’s very common to hear “Do yez want more coffee?”
Eolirin
@Redshift: I think the biggest failure point in that reasoning is thinking that we can reach people by saying the right words. That there’s some way to break through what the other side is doing by coming up with the right marketing strategy or argument.
Meanwhile the entire media ecosystem on the right is going to label every single Democrat and Democratic voter a liberal and take every opportunity to demonize liberals. And then they’re going to label every squishy Republican as a liberal too. If an attempt is made to rebrand, they’ll just take the rebranding and subsume it into liberal; antifascists are part of the liberal agenda. It is incessant, and unending, and nothing else is going to stick if you’re part of that environment.
If liberal stops resonating they’ll find a new word, but it takes some time to get something to stick. Woke doesn’t feel like it’s quite there yet, though they’re trying pretty hard.
opiejeanne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I saw part of an ad on YouTube yesterday that claimed that the Republicans had won the fight with Biden over the debt ceiling. I saw part of it because at that moment the “skip ad” button appeared and I used it with extreme prejudice.
patrick II
@cmorenc:
I spent about a year in the South. The only Southernisms I have kept are “y’all” and “happy as two ticks on a shaggy dog”.
oldgold
I wish they would impose an annual 750 hour work requirement for eligibility for the Farm Program. This would all but end this MAGA directed charity in the Midwest. The current crop of Cornfield Commies make Catch 22’s Major Major’s farming Father look like a workaholic.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@opiejeanne: Maybe that’s the crafty part of it. He agreed to a face-saving deal which they can claim is a win, while actually the bill is better for Democrats than any of us currently believe.
Yes, I’m a pie-eyed optimist, but aside from my confidence that Joe knows how to do this (see #195), things like that response to the reporter that he’s not going to share what he’s telling Democrats in congress makes me think there are more positive surprises before this is all over. I’m sure he’s gamed out the bomb-throwing by people like MTG and Boebert.
lowtechcyclist
@oldgold:
Now, no need to crap on the family of one of our front pagers. ;-)
Tony Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’m pretty sure the impenetrability of pre-decimal British currency was a major factor in our being able to conquer 1/3 of the planet. Never mind the guns and the ships and the joint-stock company, no one could understand what the hell we were charging them for goods and services and we ended up swingling them out of their entire countries.
cain
@Hamlet of Melnibone: I’ve stopped using guys and using “y’all”, it’s the women that are using ‘guys’ all the time. I don’t know how they are going to resolve all this – but I’m all set with my neutral gender stuff. :-)
Maxim
Being from California, I tend to use dude as gender-neutral, species-neutral, animate-neutral. Anyone or anything can be “dude.” But not everyone agrees with that particularly flexible approach, so when addressing people online, I do stick to neutral terms.
Folks is good. A lot of young people use fam, especially since found / chosen family can be so important. Friends is also fine. Peeps is another option. Y’all and alla y’all have already been covered. In work settings, there are colleagues and team.
Re bitch: both common usages reinforce toxic masculinity, patriarchy, misogyny. Women are supposed to be weak, silly, emotional; men are supposed to be strong, logical, and largely emotionless. Deviation from either set of ridiculous norms is castigated.
cain
@Baud:
At this point, one party is already saying “we don’t need this democracy stuff” – it’s hard to be in the middle when party is that extreme. As part of your duty as a citizen is to support the republic for which it stands – I mean for godsakes, you’ve been muttering the fucking “pledge of allegiance” all these years.
Citizen Alan
@Eolirin: Bold of you to assume that mccardle isn’t already Using chatGPT to write her commentaries. Would anyone be able to tell the difference? Then again, it’s possible the AI might be less sociopathic than her.
kalakal
@Tony Jay: I was 10 when they switched
currencies.
weirdly the old system was easy if you
grew up with it
Decimal is much better
Burnspbesq
@cmorenc:
i was taught that the plural form of “y’all” is “all a y’all.”
Nettoyeur
Chip Roy is a jacka$$. He might have won the Gohmert award had he not been beaten out by the Greene/Boebert truckstop Barbies.
Tony Jay
@kalakal:
Remember in the heady days of post-Referendum/pre/Brexit when the nuttier wing of the Nat-C Partei were talking about how we were now free to chuck out that pseudo-Euro money and go back to Pounds, Shillings and Pence like all true patriots wanted?
That didn’t last long, not even as a repetitive bugbear for the Torygraph or Der Fail.
Burnspbesq
I love Biden, but the reality is that it took the deaths of Jim Brown and Lou Reed for him to become Syracuse University’s most distinguished living alumnus.
Jinchi
@dww44: I assumed that was an AI portrait of Paxton (dressed as … Napolean?), because it’s clearly done by someone who’s never seen the man and omits the most characteristic feature of his face.
But yeah, why dress him like a 200 year old military officer when they could have had him wielding an AR and decimating lefties while riding a TRex?
Seriously missed opportunity if you ask me.
brendancalling
@Jeffro: The Post, sadly, doesn’t WANT to do better than this. It’s part of an ongoing project to attract conservative readers, and if the comments to ANY of their conservative columns are a measure, it’s not working. The only people reading are left of center types who come by to mock the writer. Meanwhile, you never see any supportive comments from conservatives, no do you see conservatives trying to deflect left of center mockery.
So yeah—the Post has larded up the op-ed pages with idiots like McMegan, Jason Willick, the van Drehle guy, etc etc and they don’t seem to be bringing in the conservative readers.
Nettoyeur
@narya: Correction. Y’all IS the plural of you. Northerners make this mistake, a lot.
Uncle Cosmo
@BellyCat: My hillbilly godmother/aunt (Mom’s favorite sister) grew up 80 miles sound of Pittsburgh & used yinz all the time. With her I think it was a variation of “you-uns,” kind of the same way postwar German Tschuß for “bye-bye” is a change rung on the British Cheers! (I.e., after the Krauts l’arned that when a specific word is needed it’s much harder to “compound” one from your own language than it is to just steal someone else’s.)
opiejeanne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: That’s my take on it, but that ad really startled me. I expected this as a RW talking point, didn’t expect an ad like this before the thing has even been voted on in Congress.
Maybe it was not YouTube, though, maybe it was during something we had recorded.
Ken
I imagine after a bit you get used to saying “8 and 7 is 3, carry the 1; 1 and 17 and 8 is 6, carry the 1; 1 and 2 and 1 is 4, so that’s 4 pounds 6 shillings 3 pence.”
@Tony Jay: My favorite description of British currency is in Good Omens, which has a footnote:
Uncle Cosmo
I’ll concede you Jim Brown, but Lou Reed? Pontificated like a true know-way-less-than-he-claims-to graduate of law school. Two words, burnsie: Horse and shit.
Eolirin
@Nettoyeur: There are regional variations where y’all is singular and all y’all is plural.
Burnspbesq
@Uncle Cosmo:
Philistine.
Manyakitty
@Citizen Alan: same! Hence, genderless
Eolirin
@opiejeanne: I was getting a bunch of ads on one of the free streaming services attacking one of our nearby GOP congress people over their vote on the original house bill and all the things it would have cut. I’m not terribly surprised to see attack ads, already, in both directions.
Geminid
@Eolirin: The day after House Republicans passed that bill, Democrats had an internet ad out attacking Rep. Jen Kiggans (VA 2nd) for her vote to cut VA funds. That district is full of active and retired military, and Kiggans will get pounded for that vote right up to election day next year.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
This has been my experience flying cut-rate airlines. The big costs of flying- the airplane, fuel, and crew- aren’t enough different between airlines to justify massive price differences. Any airline that offers extraordinarily low prices is either cutting costs they shouldn’t be (e.g. skimping on maintenance) or is giving you a low up-front price and then trying to make it back by charging for every little thing or both.
The weight limits on luggage are there for the baggage handlers, not for the total weight on the plane. Yes, they might have looked the other way over a 1 pound difference, but they really don’t want their baggage handlers having to deal with bags much over 50 pounds.
Matt McIrvin
@brendancalling: A Facebook friend just linked to this “analysis” article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/26/hiring-red-blue-states/
TLDR: it appears from hiring data that red states are job-generating powerhouses compared to blue states… but that’s an illusion–what’s happening is that there’s more churn in red states. Hiring rates are higher, so are firings and quits.
But to get that from the article, you have to read the whole thing, and the first half or so is just devoted to pumping up the illusion that it then debunks. There’s no “truth sandwich”, so if you don’t read the whole thing, as many won’t, it will just give a misleading idea of what’s going on.
My friend thinks this is actively malicious, deliberately intended by the Post to promote the right-wing narrative while maintaining deniability. I don’t know if it’s intended that way or not but I think it will have that effect.
Rebel’s Dad
@narya: “Y’all’s” is the possessive form of y’all.
Ex: “Y’all’s dog got out again and knocked up my French poodle.”
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
I think a huge part of the success of the conservative media landscape is that the people who listen to the likes of Tucker Carlson, Glen Beck, and Alex Jones are clearly defined as gullible fools. That’s a highly desirable audience segment for advertisers who want to sell garbage for inflated prices, so right wing media can be extremely profitable. In contrast, liberal audiences are at least somewhat skeptical, so liberal news media has to focus on conventional advertisers and can’t get the same kind of ultra-profitable ads.
Roger Moore
@Tony Jay:
Oh come on, it isn’t that bad. Anyone who can master inches, feet, yards, and miles, or ounces, pounds, stone, and hundredweight should be able to manage pence, shillings, and pounds. You just haven’t put in the effort because it’s never been necessary.
NotMax
@Suzanne
And here I thought that was bitchx.
;)
kalakal
@Tony Jay: It’s the nutters who want to go back
to all the old weights and measures that get.
Why not go all the way, rods, chains, bushels, pecks, hides etc?
Bloody amateurs
@Ken: They forgot tanners = sixpence
and sovereigns = 21 shillings
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve always thought pardoning Nixon was the wrong call, and strengthened the idea that people with power can get away with anything. Pardoning TFG would be extremely stupid.
NotMax
@kalakal
Half a Sixpence.
;)
Miss Bianca
@Nettoyeur:
OK, now I won’t be able to get the term “truckstop Barbies” out of my head whenever I see a picture of EmpTee Greene or Boobert.
dnfree
@Sally: We have three daughters, and I often said to them “You guys, it’s time to go” and stuff like that (in the 70s and 80s). It might be a Midwestern thing.
i also remember when “bitch” was no worse than “jerk”. That’s the one term I can think of that has gotten less acceptable. I said someone was a bitch once, just conversationally, and my daughters gasped.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay: Unfortunately, housing costs have skyrocketed at the same time. So at least in Missouri, homelessness is on the upswing and it doesn’t seem like the poor are better off than they were pre-Trump. We really need limits on investment firms buying housing.
H-Bob
@Tony Jay: I always liked that decimal coinage was one of Trollope’s hobbyhorses!
tam1MI
Same here. I take their flights from Flint or Grand Rapids to St Petersburg Florida to visit family. I don’t save any money on the flight, but it is the only non-stop flight from those airports and I am willing to pay for that.
Roberto el oso
@Burnspbesq: this makes me think of a billboard near downtown Houston, right above a rival bail bondsman’s office: it reads
“DON”T LOOSE CALL CRUZ”
It always makes me smile when I see it, just knowing that it’s been there for decades, proudly uncorrected.