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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

We still have time to mess this up!

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

We will not go back.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / And While We Are At It, Fuck Centrists

And While We Are At It, Fuck Centrists

by John Cole|  June 14, 20233:21 pm| 170 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Going hand in hand with the bullshit of respectability politics is hell’s handmaiden, the centrist:

No Labels is a political outfit that hails political centrism, calls for bipartisanship, and is considering running an independent ticket in the 2024 presidential election that could end up spoiling President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. On its website, the group urges politicians and citizens to eschew the “extremists on the far left and right,” and it asks people who are “fed up with the angriest voices dominating our politics” to sign up as members and donate to the group. But No Labels neglects to inform its online contributors that a cut of their gift goes to a company that aids Republican candidates and far-right organizations that engage in the harsh politics of extremism that No Labels professes to renounce.

Donations to No Labels are handled by an online fundraising platform called Anedot. According to its website, Anedot typically charges political groups a 4 percent fee plus 30 cents per transaction. Under that formula, when an online contributor sends No Labels $100, Anedot pockets $4.30. That money bolsters Anedot’s mission to raise funds for the right and the GOP.

All centrism does, at least in modern times, is water down good policies in order to make them palatable to self-anointed champions of moderation. These champions, unsurprisingly, always look like this:

And While We Are At It, Fuck Centrists
Bart Stupak

Do you remember that motherfucker? Bart fucking Stupak? I know we are all caught up on the execrable Joe Manchin and that annoying woman from Arizona, but there have been some real quality assholes who called themselves centrists or blue dogs. And they are always white, always rich, anti-choice, pro-business, and always supportive of everything fucking Republicans want, but just nicer.

Fuck them. And fuck No Labels.

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Previous Post: « Respectability Politics Just Means I Got Mine, Fuck You
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Reader Interactions

170Comments

  1. 1.

    Roger Moore

    June 14, 2023 at 3:23 pm

    Actual centrists aren’t the problem; it’s conservatives masquerading as centrists to steal moderate votes from the Democrats who are the problem.

  2. 2.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    June 14, 2023 at 3:26 pm

    Blogmaster on fire today!

    I’m into it.

  3. 3.

    Old Man Shadow

    June 14, 2023 at 3:27 pm

    And the media eats the centrist bullshit up.

    “He’s so moderate! He only wants to hurt and condemn to hunger and poverty just a few million people instead of tens of millions!” (Swoon)

    or

    “He’s so moderate because he bucked the Republican establishment once and only voted for their agenda and judges 99.9% of the time!”

    I mean, I respect that Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and others refuse to cross that anti-American treason line, but they’re still motherfuckers.

  4. 4.

    S Cerevisiae

    June 14, 2023 at 3:27 pm

    Fuck yeah John! You are on a roll today!

  5. 5.

    rockstar

    June 14, 2023 at 3:28 pm

    Righteous rants brother John!! Please continue sir

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 3:28 pm

    Fuck fake centrists, indeed!

    I forgot to mention in that last thread that George Will is boring as shit and I still have no idea how he got hired, why they continue to publish him in the WaPo, and so on.  They have lots of GOP hacks and he’s the most boring one of them all, by far.

    Anyway, while GQP politicians blather on, trying to make false equivalencies and incite Insurrection II, Republican insiders know the score: trumpov is going down and going to do time.

    It’s long been Republican orthodoxy that no matter what Donald Trump does, the GOP base will stick with him. After his last indictment in New York, the party rallied around him.
    But this time, privately, Republicans aren’t so sure.

    An operative in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ orbit, who requested anonymity to speak candidly without approval from higher-ups, said that “from an objective standpoint,” the federal charges Trump faces for his post-presidency handling of classified documents are far more serious than the earlier ones around hush money paymentsbefore the 2016 election.
    “I don’t know what’s going to happen in Georgia,” this person said, referring to the investigation into possible election interference by Trump and his allies. “But the man is going to prison. It’s happening. So at this point, where we are is ‘Who’s going to be the nominee?’ … Donald Trump broke the law, and frankly, I’m not a never-Trumper. I’m really not. But this is too much.

  7. 7.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2023 at 3:29 pm

    @Roger Moore: Actual centrists are nearly nonexistent, though they get an outsize voice in the political media.

  8. 8.

    ALurkSupreme

    June 14, 2023 at 3:29 pm

    Yes, sir!

  9. 9.

    JGreen

    June 14, 2023 at 3:30 pm

    If you want a very good description of how No Labels, Never Trumpers and their like are all bullshit and conservatives masquerading as centrists as Roger Moore said, check out driftglass.  He’s been specializing in this for ages.  I think his latest post is about this, as a matter of fact and he says he pointed out how phony New Labels was about two days after they announced the formation of the group.

    And, as he always likes to say: “The Left has been right about the Right all along”.  It’s just that no one will acknowledge it.

  10. 10.

    Other MJS

    June 14, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    @Roger Moore: Agree, but my gut is that these clowns have given “centrist” a bad vibe. Does “moderate” still work?

    And, yes, fuck “No Labels”. Also RFK jr. “progressives”.

  11. 11.

    bg

    June 14, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    No Labels says it will not put forth a candidate if DeSantis is the GOP nominee https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/13/no-labels-presidential-bid-trump-out-00101168

    So now centrism includes theocracy, censorship, persecution of gays and trans people, and anti-vaxx?

  12. 12.

    steve g

    June 14, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    eschew the “extremists on the far left and right,” and it asks people who are “fed up with the angriest voices dominating our politics”

    None of that applies to Joe Biden. He is not an extreme leftist, and does not blast out an angry voice. If you want to eschew those extremists and are fed up with angry voices, support Joe Biden!

  13. 13.

    Old School

    June 14, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    Do you remember that motherfucker? Bart fucking Stupak?

    To be honest, I didn’t.  I had to look him up.

    He held up the passage of the Affordable Care Act over abortion funding.  (He wanted it prohibited.)

  14. 14.

    JaySinWA

    June 14, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    @Jeffro: I’ll believe this BS is real when people put their names behind it publicly. Otherwise it’s the same useless blather that R’s privately don’t support T. when they publicly vote for everything he wants and against him being punished for the illegal things he does.

  15. 15.

    Manyakitty

    June 14, 2023 at 3:32 pm

    Right on! Cole on the loose! Bring it!

  16. 16.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    File under the above Go Fuck Yourself tag: It’s on.

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday demanded more answers for the two private flights that ferried 36 Latin American migrants to Sacramento earlier this month, issuing a public records request to Florida authorities including the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has taken credit for the so-called migrant relocation program.

    Three dozen migrants, all adults and a majority of them from Venezuela, were flown to Sacramento-area airports June 2 and June 5 from El Paso, Texas, with a stop in New Mexico. Bonta’s office on Wednesday filed a pair of public records requests — one to the office of DeSantis and one to the Florida Division of Emergency Management — as “part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation into the conditions under which the migrants seeking asylum were brought into California,” Bonta said in a statement.

    The California Department of Justice “swiftly launched an investigation into the circumstances by which these individuals were brought to California, who funded their travel and whether these individuals were given false information,” Bonta’s statement continued. The Florida governor’s office has confirmed that it was responsible for those two flights but contends that all 36 asylum-seeking migrants consented to the trip. DeSantis officials shared a link to a Rumble video purporting to show the migrants signing waivers and boarding the plane to California; the video does not identify the people who speak in the video, and The Sacramento Bee was unable to confirm the veracity of the video.

    California authorities say the arriving migrants, the first 16 of whom were dropped off at the doorstep of Sacramento’s Roman Catholic diocese, had documents indicating they were part of Florida’s “voluntary migrant transport program.” Some of the arriving asylum seekers had impending immigration court dates, including in different states, some as far away as New York and Florida, authorities said.

    The documents suggested Florida had contracted with Vertol Systems Co. to carry out the flights. It is the same company Florida enlisted last fall to fly 49 migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Flight records reviewed by The Bee showed the two recent chartered flights to Sacramento were operated by a company known as Berry Aviation.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article276403091.html#storylink=cpy

  17. 17.

    JPL

    June 14, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    @JaySinWA: How do you pronounce Koch!

  18. 18.

    JPL

    June 14, 2023 at 3:36 pm

    @bg:  They are only trying to help trump win?   I don’t get it.

  19. 19.

    Raoul Paste

    June 14, 2023 at 3:37 pm

    So I see that this post comes from the Go Fuck Yourself  file.  These days that’s a completely normal category.

  20. 20.

    JaySinWA

    June 14, 2023 at 3:40 pm

    @JPL:How do you pronounce Koch!

    Coke if I think about it, cock if I think about it more.

    Has Koch come out explicitly? He doesn’t speak out publicly to my knowledge.

  21. 21.

    Gravie

    June 14, 2023 at 3:40 pm

    Do you remember Americans Elect (or more appropriately “American Select”)? They were a “centrist” organization like No Labels that was displeased with the likelihood that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee in 2012 so they launched a national campaign to get ANYONE ELSE on the ballot as a third-party candidate. I happened to be on an Amtrak from DC to NY with someone in the mid-high echelons of the organization and we had an interesting conversation in which he could not articulate one damn good reason for his organization to exist or why they were coming right out of the starting gate with Presidential politics. I’m sure No Labels is equally unimpressive.

  22. 22.

    Chris

    June 14, 2023 at 3:40 pm

    Do you remember that motherfucker? Bart fucking Stupak?

    I remember that he basically ended his own career as a congresscritter by forcing an amendment into the ACA that prohibited the use of government funds for abortion.  Despite that, soon thereafter the priest at my local church was thundering that the ACA was something we should all oppose because argle bargle abortion.

    In addition to being one of the things that really kicked my burnout with the Catholic Church into high gear, it nicely illustrates the futility of the whole centrist project.  “Let’s be moderate so that the social conservatives aren’t angry with us.”  Yeah, that’s not a thing.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 14, 2023 at 3:41 pm

    When did infrequent front-pager /checks notes/ John Cole start talking politics? //

    I remember Stupak. There was an internet rumor back in 09-10 that he was persuaded by the US conference of bishops to throw a monkey wrench into Obamacare in return for some bauble from Pope Benedict of the Red Shoes (and Matching Hat), but I’ve never been able to confirm it one way or the other.

  24. 24.

    Ruckus

    June 14, 2023 at 3:41 pm

    2 posts in just 4 hrs?

    John, are you OK?

    @Roger Moore:

    I agree, we all have a right to our views on the world. That is part of what makes it so that we are not all the same. But being a rigid conservative means that really everything is OK and no change is needed, or should be allowed. And of course nothing imperfect humans (every last fucking one of us) ever do is perfect. We should strive to make things better, rather than just the selfish fuckers richer. All of us are a part of life, not the end all be all of it. And when we make improvements we should damn well share in that so that it improves everyone’s life. In the concept of earth’s time we are here and gone in an instant, we should work to make that world better, not just for the few, but for all. And no, none of us can do this alone, we have to work together to make things better. People like SFB never, ever make the world better while they are here, because they are against everything that takes away from their personal betterment. Which means they are never better, never a decent part of the circle of life. They are like dog shit on your flip flops or sandals, which never, ever stays just on the bottom of the soles and always ends up on your feet.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    June 14, 2023 at 3:42 pm

    @Raoul Paste: We are all Roy Kent.

  26. 26.

    smith

    June 14, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    @JPL: They want a Republican to win, and they are afraid that TFG  can’t do it without help. So they put up a fake “centrist” to bleed votes from Biden to give TFG a boost. Apparently they think that if TFG is out of the picture, DeSantis as the nominee won’t need this help (little do they know). The important thing is that an R wins, and they’re actually OK if it’s TFG.

    Same thing applies to the fake “progressive” RFKJr, BFF of Steve Bannon and antivaxxers everywhere.

  27. 27.

    davecb

    June 14, 2023 at 3:50 pm

    Canada used to have two centrist parties, simply called Liberals and Conservatives. The not-too-right-centre part of the Conservatives was officially called the Progressive Conservatives (PCs), after the former Progressive party (my dad was a progressive).

    The two parties distinguished themselves by saying they each had a different emphasis, but for years they were both vaguely centrist, and power went back and forth peacefully.

    Then a far-right party broke off from the PCs, did some fundraising and party building and pulled a hostile takeover of the PCs.  So for a while we had only one centrist party, still called the Liberals, trying to bridge the gap between left and right.  Net result? They were neither, and suffered from lack of a mission, or even a theory of what you mean when you say centrist.

    The good part is that the Liberals have pulled back from the muddy middle a bit, and are governing fairly sanely as an explicitly centre-left party. With the help of the New Democratic Party (leftist) they make the former PCs look like raving Trumpists.  The bad part is we don’t have a right-center party to take over from them if they get lazy or even just too long in the tooth…

    The moral of the story?

    • The center is not someplace you want to be, unless you’re a scammer. You need to have a mission, and “I’ll be a nothing” isn’t a mission.
    • Assume anyone who says they’re pure centrist probably is a scammer, like “No Labels” or the Canadian “Centre Ice” party.
    • I claim we each need a new centre-right party.
  28. 28.

    eclare

    June 14, 2023 at 3:51 pm

    @steve g:

    QFT.  Joe is optimistic, calm, cool…good grief, his favorite food is ice cream!

  29. 29.

    different-church-lady

    June 14, 2023 at 3:57 pm

    Nice to have you back John!

  30. 30.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 3:57 pm

    🇺🇦 attack drone Vampire, which previously was used to destroy the occupiers, now is used to deliver humanitarian aid to Ukrainian flood victims on the Russian occupied left bank of the Dnipro river. Kherson region.https://t.co/nG34k8HK4M pic.twitter.com/mcKudoNlk5— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 14, 2023

  31. 31.

    PAM Dirac

    June 14, 2023 at 3:58 pm

    @JaySinWA:

    Has Koch come out explicitly?

    Yes, see for example this. I think it was a $5 million buy. Of course he wants Desantis in, so he still garbage, but he is very explicitly calling drumpf a loser and spending money to spread that message.

  32. 32.

    Citizen Alan

    June 14, 2023 at 3:58 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: You know how you can tell that “Centrism” is absolute bullshit? On every issue which commands 60% or higher support from the general public but which is opposed by Republican orthodoxy, the “Centrists” start blathering about “the tyranny of the majority.”

  33. 33.

    Other MJS

    June 14, 2023 at 3:58 pm

    Also FTFNYT.

  34. 34.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 4:00 pm

    @davecb:

    we used to have “Red Tories”, extinct now as a species.

    Social media has whack jobs showing up everywhere,

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kelowna-short-hair-girl-gender-identity-1.6875738

  35. 35.

    Alison Rose

    June 14, 2023 at 4:00 pm

    extremists on the far left

    LOLOL show me who fits this label who is currently a member of either the Biden administration or Congress. Sanders? AOC? Mayor Pete? Come the entire fuck on.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 4:01 pm

    Your new diet seems to be working well.

  37. 37.

    Redshift

    June 14, 2023 at 4:01 pm

    The same No Labels that took 200K from Clarence Thomas’ sugar daddy? Who could imagine those guys could be ratf*ckers trying to get a Republican elected?

  38. 38.

    Alison Rose

    June 14, 2023 at 4:01 pm

    @trollhattan: Very glad to see Bonta pursuing this.

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    June 14, 2023 at 4:04 pm

    @AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team:

    Me too.

    Go Cole!👏🏾

  40. 40.

    SpaceUnit

    June 14, 2023 at 4:04 pm

    If I had some random encounter with that grinning dipshit I would immediately guess his name was Bart Stupak.

  41. 41.

    eclare

    June 14, 2023 at 4:05 pm

    @Jay:

    God those flood scenes.  Just catastrophic.

  42. 42.

    Doc Sardonic

    June 14, 2023 at 4:05 pm

    Yep Liz and Mitt are motherfuckers that won’t cross the Treason Line that the rest of the Republic party are tightroping. The only difference is that Liz and Mitt will bring your mother flowers, candy and maybe a nice bottle of wine or whiskey before they fuck her.

  43. 43.

    rikyrah

    June 14, 2023 at 4:06 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Always with the anonymous bullshyt 😡

     

    No

    .be strong enough to go on the record 😡

  44. 44.

    Tony Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    ‘Centrist’ – Species of nomadic parasite typically found occupying territory recently vacated by The Right.

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    June 14, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    @bg: That’s definitely the “tell” that their only objective is to help the Republican candidate get elected. They’ll throw all their support behind DeSantis if he’s the candidate, bank on it.

  46. 46.

    JaySinWA

    June 14, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    @PAM Dirac: Okay, I had heard about the ad buy. It’s under Americans for Prosperity PAC so lightly laundered Koch money, but not putting a person’s name on it. The CNBC target demo is interesting, kind of a Chamber of Commerce target market. Baby steps, I guess.

  47. 47.

    misterpuff

    June 14, 2023 at 4:10 pm

    This is good news for John McCain.

  48. 48.

    James E Powell

    June 14, 2023 at 4:10 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I forgot to mention in that last thread that George Will is boring as shit and I still have no idea how he got hired, why they continue to publish him in the WaPo, and so on.

    He was raised up back in the Reagan days. He wore bowties & spoke well & made references to writers that most people never heard of let alone read, and thus provided an intellectual patina to the hateful ignorance & bigotry of the Reagan administration.

    And he talked about baseball a lot – though he was as full of shit as most people who talk about baseball a lot – and that was like the 80s equivalent of wearing a fleece vest.

  49. 49.

    UncleEbeneezer

    June 14, 2023 at 4:13 pm

    Meanwhile, Cornel (definitely NOT a Centrist) West is trying to become the Jill Stein of 2024 😡😡

  50. 50.

    James E Powell

    June 14, 2023 at 4:15 pm

    @Alison Rose:

    It is the political media’s established practice to use whatever definitions the Republicans use, so the man formerly known as the Senator from MNBA is now a far-left radical socialist.

  51. 51.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2023 at 4:16 pm

    Whenever I see people going “fuck centrists” I usually have to read on a little to figure out whether they’re one of those horseshoe-left or Green Party saboteur types whose definition of a “centrist” is a Democrat. But not if it’s John Cole

    Functionally there is little difference between No Labels and the Jill Stein movement, even though they claim to be in completely different places.

  52. 52.

    Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride

    June 14, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    @James E Powell: I first became aware of him in the Nixon days, when he appeared to be the only self-identified conservative columnist to denounce Nixon and (IIRC) even call for his resignation as soon as Watergate started heating up.  That gave him a reputation for intellectual honesty which he forfeited a long time ago.

  53. 53.

    Rusty

    June 14, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    Since we are mentioning supposed centrists, let me take the opportunity to say fuck Joe Liebermann.  He was my senator from CT and he as so obviously a self centered asshole that when Gore picked him for VP and announced it I yelled at my television.

    Much of “centrism” makes no sense.  Abortions banned on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but available the other days?  Poor people with cancer that have a last name that starts with A-M get healthcare, but those with N-Z are out of luck and die?  Well funded public schools for even grades, but nothing for odd grades?  There is a lot of policy that is either/or, there is no centrist position.  Somehow supposed centrist positions are always beneficial to the already rich.  Go figure.  Fuck all those people too.

  54. 54.

    p.a.

    June 14, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @James E Powell:

    Will prepped Ronnie Rayguns for his debates against… Carter? Mondale? while he was an ABC employee and actually supplied him with some of the questions IIRC.  The results when this became known were a week’s worth of furrowed eyebrows and some tut-tuts.

  55. 55.

    JPL

    June 14, 2023 at 4:21 pm

    @smith: In GA you can vote in either primary.   Don might be getting a surprise vote from me, because Ron has already shown how dangerous he is.

    might because I have a weak stomach

  56. 56.

    UncleEbeneezer

    June 14, 2023 at 4:22 pm

    @James E Powell: I think he was trying to be the heir to the William F. Buckley throne, but he never had the right charisma for it.

  57. 57.

    Chris

    June 14, 2023 at 4:22 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The one way in which I’m very “centrist” is that I think the last decade or so have made clear that there’s very little difference between the Jill Stein type so-called leftists and the Joe Lieberman type so-called centrists.

    There’s a reason Krysten Sinema has been able to seamlessly transition from the former to the latter.

  58. 58.

    Fraud Guy

    June 14, 2023 at 4:23 pm

    I read

    …extremists on the left and right…

    and I hear Bill Cosby’s joke:

    Bill Cosby’s mom: “Son, I am sick…”
    Bill Cosby : “…and tired.
    I don’t remember anything until I woke up the next day.”

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 4:26 pm

    @JaySinWA: yes

    @JPL: yes

    @PAM Dirac:  you beat me to it!  Yes, Charles Koch is already out there trying his very evil best to keep trumpov from the GOP nomination.

  60. 60.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 4:29 pm

    @James E Powell:And he talked about baseball a lot – though he was as full of shit as most people who talk about baseball a lot – and that was like the 80s equivalent of wearing a fleece vest.

    this is a very good point/comparison, thanks

    (also, I’m off to rename my punk band “Intellectual Patina”, that’s awesome!)

  61. 61.

    Another Scott

    June 14, 2023 at 4:31 pm

    @JGreen: Indeed.

    driftglass: No Labels – It was Magatha All Along (from May 29):

    Oh noes! A handful of credulous centrist Democrats are starting to notice that No Labels was the poisonous, Republican-enabling grift that —

    Anything that makes it harder for Democrats to win helps the GQPers. No Labels is a GQP front.

    Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 4:31 pm

    @James E Powell:the man formerly known as the Senator from MNBA is now a far-left radical socialist.

    I thought that was Carper?  Or Bill Roth (RIP)?  =)

    Fits all three, honestly.

    The best-looking vacant buildings in downtown Wilmington, good ol’ MBNA!

  63. 63.

    Alison Rose

    June 14, 2023 at 4:34 pm

    @James E Powell:

    the Senator from MNBA

    who to the what now?

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 4:35 pm

    @Rusty:Much of “centrism” makes no sense. There is a lot of policy that is either/or, there is no centrist position.  Somehow supposed centrist positions are always beneficial to the already rich.  Go figure.  Fuck all those people too.

    110% this

    It always seems to be “centrist” to a) work within the current tax system (or with lower rates for rich folks) but taxes can never go up, and b) there are always public services to be privatized in “centrist” systems.

    There’s no such thing as robust, well-funded public services in “centrist-World”

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 4:36 pm

    @Alison Rose: huge credit card company/bank that was headquartered in Wilmington, DE

    Now scattered to the winds (Bank of America, Virgin, Lloyds, etc)

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    June 14, 2023 at 4:36 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Functionally there is little difference between No Labels and the Jill Stein movement, even though they claim to be in completely different places.

    The claim they’re in different places is functionally important.  The media allows the two major political parties to define the Overton Window.  Anyone who can claim to be a centrist with a straight face will be treated with utmost seriousness, while anyone who claims to be left of the Democrats or right of the Republicans will be ignored.

  67. 67.

    Alison Rose

    June 14, 2023 at 4:38 pm

    @Jeffro: Ahhh okay. I was like…a men’s basketball player?

  68. 68.

    Roger Moore

    June 14, 2023 at 4:39 pm

    @Rusty:

    There is a lot of policy that is either/or, there is no centrist position.

    You can still be a centrist even if none of your opinions are exactly in the center.  You just have to agree with the left on some issues and the right on others.  The classic approach to this is the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” approach to centrism, where you give the ultra-rich everything they want but say no to the right wing culture warriors.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    June 14, 2023 at 4:42 pm

    @Rusty:

    Much of “centrism” makes no sense.  Abortions banned on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but available the other days?  Poor people with cancer that have a last name that starts with A-M get healthcare, but those with N-Z are out of luck and die?  Well funded public schools for even grades, but nothing for odd grades?  There is a lot of policy that is either/or, there is no centrist position.  Somehow supposed centrist positions are always beneficial to the already rich.  Go figure.  Fuck all those people too.

    There’s two separate though ultimately very much related problems with centrism.

    One, there are problems that it simply isn’t equipped to solve.  Slavery wasn’t a problem with a “centrist” solution.  Neither is abortion.  Those are all-or-nothing issues.  Half the point of the way the United States was originally designed was to make a “centrist” compromise that left the pro and anti slavery sides just not-unhappy enough to stick together… and sure enough it spent the next century going to pieces until the Civil War, because that kind of thing isn’t sustainable over the long run.

    Two, there are problems that are amenable to “centrist” solutions.  A stupendous amount of twentieth century economics (the successful parts, at least) is based precisely on “centrist” thinking; let’s borrow liberally from socialist and capitalist ideas both to see if we can make something that keeps the good parts of both while limiting the bad ones as much as possible.  There’s just one problem with this; the people who accept this kind of thinking are called “liberals.”  Today’s professional “centrists” keep trying to pretend that these people are socialist extremists who are the mirror image of the Ayn Randian capitalist extremists on the other side, and that centrists are the only sane people in the middle.  When in reality, the spectrum is People Who Want A Compromise Between The Economic Left And The Economic Right versus People Of The Cult That Says The Economic Right Can Do No Wrong.

    The common point between the two kinds of problems, of course, is that either way, the “centrists” are stalking horses for the right.

  70. 70.

    eversor

    June 14, 2023 at 4:45 pm

    Around these parts a centrist is socialy liberal but fiscally conservative.  Give us Republican economics but Democratic social issues.  Also the economics matter more.   If you dare give us Sanders or Warren than burn the nation to the fucking ground.  Fuck the poors marry the gays, keep abortion legal but let’s slash social security.

    Virginia politics.

  71. 71.

    Redshift

    June 14, 2023 at 4:45 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Actual centrists aren’t the problem; it’s conservatives masquerading as centrists to steal moderate votes from the Democrats who are the problem.

    I’d want to hear your definition of actual centrists before I could agree with that.

    I agree it once meant someone who was closer to the center than the mainstream of their party, so more conservative Dems and more liberal Republicans (species now extinct.) But along the way it came to mean something like the No Labels BS, “both sides are too extreme, halfway between in the center is the right and moderate place to be.” But as we all know, Republicans sprinted to the right and Democrats moves slightly to the left while Republicans made up stories about Dems becoming extreme, so staying in the center meant becoming conservative (perhaps without even realizing it) and opposing pretty mainstream things just to not be part of the supposed extreme.

    And the reason this is a problem is for a lot of normies, being a centrist sounds like being a moderate (which is certainly how the punditry treats it), so they get a concept of what ideas are moderate that’s skewed to the right.

  72. 72.

    Roger Moore

    June 14, 2023 at 4:48 pm

    @Chris:

    I would make one additional point, which is that many issues that are amenable to compromise actually result in compromises.  The budget is a good example.  We rarely get a budget that perfectly reflects either Democratic or Republican priorities.  Instead we get some kind of ugly compromise that nobody is happy with but that can scrounge up enough votes to pass.  What that means in practice is that the all or nothing issues that can’t be compromised on take up a disproportionate amount of space in the discourse.

  73. 73.

    UncleEbeneezer

    June 14, 2023 at 4:50 pm

    @Chris: Yup.  And it wasn’t Centrists who helped deliver W and Trump to the Presidency.

  74. 74.

    Sis

    June 14, 2023 at 4:52 pm

    You are so right, John!

  75. 75.

    BlueGuitarist

    June 14, 2023 at 4:55 pm

    House defeated an attempt by far right rep Luna to censure Adam Schiff and fine him $16 million

  76. 76.

    Tom Q

    June 14, 2023 at 4:57 pm

    @p.a.: ​
     It was the Carter/Mondale debate. And the worst part was, he appeared on a post-debate panel, telling everyone how well Reagan had done.

    To give ABC minimal credit, they did blackball him from political analysis for a while afterward. But, to withdraw credit, they eventually forgot about it and restored him to the position.

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 14, 2023 at 4:58 pm

    @Roger Moore: And that implies it’s quite dangerous that extreme rightists are mostly willing to work within the Republican Party, whereas extreme leftists seem to have a drive to split off from anything mainstream and work against the parties adjacent to them.

  78. 78.

    Tom Q

    June 14, 2023 at 5:02 pm

    @Rusty: ​
     I remember waking up the morning Gore’s VP announcement was made, and turning on my computer for the news. I had AOL at the time, which had its premier headline in a box. However, I had a popup box (I think it said Friends/Contacts/something else) that covered a small portion of the larger box. That popup meant what I initially saw was

    Gore Picks (BLANK SPACE)
    For Vice-President

    I rapidly closed the popup, and, when I saw “Lieberman” fill the space, I did like you: Screamed NO!

    I’ll always believe that Lieberman cost Gore the election. If he was chosen to help in Florida, that obviously didn’t pan out. And I have no doubt he goosed the Nader vote, which probably cost NH, at minimum.

  79. 79.

    Chief Oshkosh

    June 14, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    @Roger Moore: This is the exact point I was going to make, and go further to say that real centrists are Democrats these days. I work with two “rock-ribbed Republicans” who’ve been voting Democratic since Reagan – the party left them long, long ago.

  80. 80.

    Manyakitty

    June 14, 2023 at 5:05 pm

    @Alison Rose: should be MBNA.

  81. 81.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2023 at 5:05 pm

    @Tom Q: Yeah, that was a big mistake. Remember his friendly chat with Cheney?

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    June 14, 2023 at 5:09 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    We are all Roy Kent.

    Ha! Perfect!

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    June 14, 2023 at 5:12 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer: West was recently seen shilling in the WSJ for Ron DeSantis, so maybe he’ll embrace “centrism” yet since its most salient feature these days is a tendency to define itself in opposition to Democrats — whatever they’re for at any given moment.

  84. 84.

    Redshift

    June 14, 2023 at 5:13 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I would make one additional point, which is that many issues that are amenable to compromise actually result in compromises.

    Yeah, but being willing to compromise to get a deal isn’t the same as your political identity/starting position being a compromise. The budget compromise didn’t happen because either Biden or McCarthy was a centrist.

  85. 85.

    Scout211

    June 14, 2023 at 5:14 pm

    O/T This isn’t about centrists, but the crazy caucus.

    GOP effort to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff fails in key vote

    A Republican-led effort to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff has failed in a key House vote.

    The House voted Wednesday on a motion to table – or kill – the resolution, a motion put forward by House Democrats. Enough Republicans crossed the aisle in support for the effort to succeed in blocking the censure. The vote was 225 to 196 with 20 Republicans voting with Democrats to table the resolution.

    The censure resolution, sponsored by GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, broadly criticizes Schiff with a focus on his role in investigations of the former president.

  86. 86.

    Brachiator

    June 14, 2023 at 5:16 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Actual centrists are nearly nonexistent, though they get an outsize voice in the political media.

    Most Democrats are probably centrist.

    The trick is to define what you mean by centrist.

    I certainly tire of pundits (e.g., The Young Turks) and politicians (Bernie) who assume that everyone is on board for their ill-defined and meaningless “progressive” agenda.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 5:17 pm

    @Redshift:

     

    @Brachiator:

    Agreed.

  88. 88.

    geg6

    June 14, 2023 at 5:17 pm

    OT, but since the thread is posted in the Go Fuck Yourself topics, maybe not.  But the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter trial will finally have closing arguments tomorrow and, if we’re lucky, the jury will have it by noon.  I expect a lightning fast guilty verdict and then on to the punishment phase.  The USA is asking for the death penalty.  That may be the more difficult decision for the jury.  Some victims and their families are not wanting death and others definitely do.  I am not generally in favor of the death penalty.  But in this case, I could make an exception.  Not just because of the nature of the crime but I fear this asshole being a hero to the white supremacists who are everywhere in prisons and to the assholes outside of prison who laud him.  I just want him gone.  He’s a waste of oxygen.

  89. 89.

    Citizen Alan

    June 14, 2023 at 5:20 pm

    @Roger Moore: Which is bullshit. Because if you are really socially liberal and fiscally conservative, you are a democrat. There has been no point in the last thirty years at least when any significant number of republicans could even pretend to be either socially liberal or truly fiscally conservative. Unless you take the idiotic position that the government paying for anything that benefits ordinary non billionaire americans is per se fiscally irresponsible.

  90. 90.

    Gin & Tonic

    June 14, 2023 at 5:20 pm

    @geg6: Will he be more of a hero if he is executed?

  91. 91.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2023 at 5:21 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Cornel West??? He has really lost his mind?

  92. 92.

    Fleeting Expletive

    June 14, 2023 at 5:21 pm

    Hope I’m not the only one who thought of an old saying, “only thing in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” Maybe it’s a Texas thing.  Or something someone famous said. I’m agnostic on its origin.

  93. 93.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 5:21 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I believe he’s found his wallet.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    June 14, 2023 at 5:24 pm

    Centrism Silver (™) May Be Right For You!

    -driftglass

  95. 95.

    Gin & Tonic

    June 14, 2023 at 5:24 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Seen this?

    🇷🇺 #Russia #Today
    The Chinese brand of clothing and shoes Eblan is going to enter the Russian market – “East Media” pic.twitter.com/beYNYGjGlx
    — Financial Sooth – Crypto Market News 💰|💰|💰 (@financialsooth) June 13, 2023

  96. 96.

    different-church-lady

    June 14, 2023 at 5:26 pm

    Fox News says it ‘addressed’ onscreen message that called Biden a ‘wannabe dictator’

    “We regret this error. In the future we will ensure the language is changed to ‘actual dictator’.”

  97. 97.

    James E Powell

    June 14, 2023 at 5:30 pm

    @Alison Rose:

    I want to stress that I wasn’t the one who called Joe Biden the Senator from MBNA, it was the right wingers. That is, the same people who now call him a far-left radical socialist.

    The Senator from MBNA. It’s the National Review reprinting American Spectator, so please exercise appropriate caution.

  98. 98.

    Maxim

    June 14, 2023 at 5:31 pm

    @trollhattan: Given his administration’s deep respect for the rule of law, I’m sure those documents will be immediately forthcoming.

  99. 99.

    geg6

    June 14, 2023 at 5:31 pm

    @Alison Rose:

    They called Biden that for years because MBNA was headquartered in DE and Joe did his constituent service for them quite robustly.  See the bankruptcy laws for one example.

  100. 100.

    Pittsburgh Mike

    June 14, 2023 at 5:32 pm

    No Labels isn’t centrist, it’s a pure BS attempt to fool people into not voting D.

  101. 101.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 5:33 pm

    @Pittsburgh Mike:

    Agree, but it uses centrism as a tool toward that end.

  102. 102.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 5:33 pm

    @James E Powell:

    @geg6:

    shorter: (me, at #65)  =)

  103. 103.

    Splitting Image

    June 14, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I forgot to mention in that last thread that George Will is boring as shit and I still have no idea how he got hired, why they continue to publish him in the WaPo, and so on. They have lots of GOP hacks and he’s the most boring one of them all, by far.

    My favourite George F. Will column is a screed he published in 2009 or so complaining about people wearing blue jeans to work. It was perfect timing as it coincided with jeans becoming less popular with women and leggings starting to replace them as casual wear.

    It was notable for how strongly Will argued that people need to become adults at some point in their lives and put aside childish things, and for suggesting that men and women should model themselves after Fred Astaire and Grace Kelly respectively, being two actors who have been dead for decades but who were popular when George F. Will was a lad.

    The chef’s kiss is that Grace Kelly had a lot to do with blue jeans becoming respectable for women to wear in the first place when she wore them in Rear Window in 1954. I don’t think Fred Astaire wore jeans, but Ginger Rogers did, all the way back in the 1930s.

  104. 104.

    Ksmiami

    June 14, 2023 at 5:37 pm

    @different-church-lady: good. Maybe Biden as dictator can shut that useless propaganda channel down.

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    June 14, 2023 at 5:38 pm

    while we are busy yelling “fuck centrists!” let’s also let loose a hearty “fuck horse-race, Pitchbot-style pundits” where everything bad for trump could, you know, be good

    trump’s indictment has a silver lining for the GOP: just get him to step aside and endorse some other Republican who’ll pardon him

    (barf)

    But if Republicans somehow nominate someone other than Trump, the indictment could work to the GOP’s advantage in a subtle but powerful way. The threat of prison in a second Biden term would give Trump a strong incentive to support the Republican nominee and urge his base to do the same.

    Failing that, Trump’s best bet is for another Republican to win. His opponents have by and large responded to the indictment by blasting politicization in the Justice Department under Biden. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley criticized Trump’s mishandling of documents but also said she’d be “inclined” to pardon him if elected. Expect more candidates to give similar answers as the primary season goes on.

    Trump now has a real personal interest — his own liberty — in ensuring that a Republican wins next year’s election, even if it’s not him. That will bind him to any Republican nominee in a way that he might not have been before this federal indictment.

    Shorter: don’t do the right thing for the country, GOP.  Do what works for the Republican Party – help Donald Trump avoid justice, even after selling our country’s secrets, inciting insurrection, and making obvious threats against the family of the special prosecutor.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 5:38 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    Will argued that people need to become adults at some point in their lives and put aside childish things

     
    Like faux nostalgia, perhaps.

  107. 107.

    geg6

    June 14, 2023 at 5:39 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    He’ll be gone and not turning young, impressionable criminals who may be released and who may not yet be lost causes into assholes like him to target more synagogues.  As I said, I’m not into the death penalty in most cases but I’m okay if this mother fucker dies.

  108. 108.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 5:39 pm

     According to its website, Anedot typically charges political groups a 4 percent fee plus 30 cents per transaction.

    Great! Let’s all send a dozen 10 cent contributions.

  109. 109.

    bjacques

    June 14, 2023 at 5:45 pm

    “Social liberal, fiscal conservative” is a cop-out, meaning “I’m all for progress as it doesn’t remotely threaten to inconvenience me”.
    Rights that exist on paper often cause money or time (an opportunity cost) to exercise. If people can’t afford to exercise those rights, they don’t have them. This is really a feature for “social liberals/fiscal conservatives”, who hope you missed them palming that card.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    June 14, 2023 at 5:47 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    The chef’s kiss is that Grace Kelly had a lot to do with blue jeans becoming respectable for women to wear in the first place when she wore them in Rear Window in 1954. I don’t think Fred Astaire wore jeans, but Ginger Rogers did, all the way back in the 1930s.

    Great catch with respect to Grace Kelly. I had almost forgot about the scene with her in jeans, at the end of the movie.

    And Fred Astaire was more from an earlier generation. And of course they were dressed by studio designers. It’s not like they were pulling outfits out of their own closets.

    ETA. I think that Roger Moore wore some of his own clothes in The Saint TV series.

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    June 14, 2023 at 5:47 pm

    @Jeffro: Good luck getting Trump to step aside in return for the promise of a pardon. He believes he can win the nomination and then the general election, and that the only way out is through.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 5:51 pm

    @Geminid:

    He won’t step aside. I think the idea is that if he loses the nomination, he has an incentive not to undermine the nominee out of spite.

  113. 113.

    C Stars

    June 14, 2023 at 5:55 pm

    @Splitting Image: My favourite George F. Will column is a screed he published in 2009 or so complaining about people wearing blue jeans to work.

    Oh my god, LAST MONTH the Washington Post published a George Will screed about the same freaking thing, lionizing, of all things, the fucking J. Crew catalogue, as “preferable to egalitarian shabbiness.” The guy is a parody of himself. ETA and it really steams my salmon that he likely gets paid ten times more than the news assistants and copyeditors who work valiantly to make his columns vaguely coherent.

     

    Also, “No Labels” is just a stupid name for a political group.

    “We stand for nothing.”

    “We don’t care about anything but our own interests”

    “With all the words in the English language, we couldn’t be bothered articulating or expressing our views other than that they are inexpressible. But hey, donate!”

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2023 at 6:01 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: No, but their brand name needs some work!

  115. 115.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:01 pm

    @C Stars:

    Agree with everything you say.  But there are people who are not part of the No Labels grod6t who seem to think there is some unity among “independents” who are not a member of one of the two parties.

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    June 14, 2023 at 6:02 pm

    @bjacques:

    “Social liberal, fiscal conservative” is a cop-out, meaning “I’m all for progress as it doesn’t remotely threaten to inconvenience me”.

    Nope. Why would you favor any policy that would inconvenience or threaten you? Isn’t that playing at political martyrdom?

    Or many you mean that people should be willing to feel a little economic pain in order to make sure that everyone is reasonably provided for. Maybe. But even here, there are limits.

  117. 117.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2023 at 6:03 pm

    @Splitting Image: Oh, I forgot those blue jeans! At the end.

  118. 118.

    C Stars

    June 14, 2023 at 6:04 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    @Brachiator:

    Great catch with respect to Grace Kelly. I had almost forgot about the scene with her in jeans, at the end of the movie.

    Yes, she’s always showing up in these ridiculous evening dresses so at the end she must be signaling that she’s meeting James Stewart in the middle, dressing like an “everyman” like him. But Kathryn Hepburn did that long before Grace Kelly.

  119. 119.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 6:05 pm

    Senior Republican on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, James Risch, blocked the sale of HIMARS systems and ammunition to Hungary worth $735 million due to the Hungarian position on Sweden's accession to NATO. This is the way 👏https://t.co/xEC7waqyCb— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) June 14, 2023

  120. 120.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2023 at 6:05 pm

    @C Stars: But she has the fashion magazine stashed behind the other one.

  121. 121.

    Kelly

    June 14, 2023 at 6:05 pm

    @C Stars: Also, “No Labels” is just a stupid name for a political group.

    “We stand for nothing.”

    Nihilists stand for nothing

  122. 122.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:05 pm

    @Jay:

    That’s bipartisanship I can get behind.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    June 14, 2023 at 6:05 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Cornell West has already won the nomination of the “Movement for a People’s Party” (MPP). Denise Oliver-Velez had this to say about it:

       The neck scarves Corny West wears have clearly cut off the flow to his brain. Now that he thinks he’s Shrill Stein, Susan Saranwrap, and Nina Turner in pants can we quickly relegate this fascist enabler to hell?

    @deoliver47

    Yesterday West announced that he would seek the Green Party nomination as well, in order to create a “United Front.” Comments at the Post Left Watch twitter site said that West was encouraged by people opposed to Howie Hawkins, the party’s 2020 nominee and 2024 contender, because Hawkins supports Ukraine.

    Another angle may be that the MPP’s grifty, cult-leader founder is attempting to take over the Green Party. That could end up destroying the Green Party, which would be no big loss.

  124. 124.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:06 pm

    @Kelly:

    They’re worse than National Socialists.

  125. 125.

    zhena gogolia

    June 14, 2023 at 6:06 pm

    @Geminid: Haha, go, Denise!

  126. 126.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:07 pm

    @Geminid:

    Has West come out against Ukraine?

  127. 127.

    Splitting Image

    June 14, 2023 at 6:11 pm

    @C Stars:

    Oh my god, LAST MONTH the Washington Post published a George Will screed about the same freaking thing, lionizing, of all things, the fucking J. Crew catalogue, as “preferable to egalitarian shabbiness.” The guy is a parody of himself. ETA and it really steams my salmon that he likely gets paid ten times more than the news assistants and copyeditors who work valiantly to make his columns vaguely coherent.

    Thanks for linking to that. It was hilarious. He even says that the 2009 article generated so much disagreement it proves he was on to something. A centrist to the very last.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    June 14, 2023 at 6:11 pm

    @Baud:

    He won’t step aside. I think the idea is that if he loses the nomination, he has an incentive not to undermine the nominee out of spite.

    This would be an interesting dilemma for Trump. He hates to be a loser and clearly believes that he has a divine right to the presidency. He also assumes that the GOP base will love him forever. I don’t think that he can even imagine losing the nomination.

    On the other hand, it would eat at his soul to be beholden to someone else for a potential pardon.

    Either way he would be marked as a loser, which of course he is anyway.

  129. 129.

    Roger Moore

    June 14, 2023 at 6:11 pm

    @Redshift:

    Yeah, but being willing to compromise to get a deal isn’t the same as your political identity/starting position being a compromise.

    I agree, but the groups like No Labels aren’t just about finding squishy centrist politicians.  They’re built around the idea that the problem in our politics is the inability of politicians to compromise.  My point is that compromise is actually happening all the time, even between politicians who disagree wildly on the issues.  It’s just we never hear about those issues very much because they get solved without too much drama.  It’s only the issues where compromise is really impossible that result in impasses, and all the wishful thinking in the world won’t solve that problem.

  130. 130.

    Geminid

    June 14, 2023 at 6:11 pm

    @Baud: I can’t say that he has, but it’s almost certain that West opposes aid to Ukraine. That sentiment is very strong among the “Dirtbag Left” whose support he needs.

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    June 14, 2023 at 6:13 pm

    Would any of you be shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that the Colorado Libertarian Party is in bed with the Republicans?

    In case you can’t click through to the article, love our Governor’s Twitter response to the announcement that the Libertarians won’t run candidates in “close races”:

    “And if you run more pro-liberty candidates who support a woman’s right to choose, the freedom to marry who you love, reducing the income tax, private property rights to build housing on your own land, and legal cannabis and psilocybin small businesses then… maybe you can start calling your nominees Democrats.”

  132. 132.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:13 pm

    @Geminid:

    Thanks.  Makes sense.  I’m just trying to ascertain how dead to me he is.

  133. 133.

    C Stars

    June 14, 2023 at 6:13 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Oh yeah! Behind a photography magazine?

    He’s the cad in that duo, but I could see why those dresses annoyed him.

    It’s not until now, in my 40s, that am picking up on the intense gender dynamic rippling through all of Hitchcock’s movies. He really starkly demonstrates how women were subjugated and victimized and dismissed in the culture of his time, and I’m not sure whether it’s intentional or not.

  134. 134.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:16 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    I’m glad those people are getting exposed. I hope the lesson sticks.

  135. 135.

    Roger Moore

    June 14, 2023 at 6:16 pm

    @Maxim:

    Given his administration’s deep respect for the rule of law, I’m sure those documents will be immediately forthcoming.

    IIRC, he had the state legislature rubber stamp a law that exempted the program from sunshine laws, so he can legally deny Bonta as long as this is submitted as a government records request.  Presumably Bonta could upgrade that to a subpoena, but I think it would be a federal case to see if Florida has to honor the subpoena in that case.

  136. 136.

    Sparkedcat

    June 14, 2023 at 6:18 pm

    @JPL: In TN I will be voting for Trump in the Republican primary and voting for Biden in the general. My money will be going to the swing states.

  137. 137.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 6:20 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    The FL courts are stacked with loyalists, but I believe their Sunshine laws are in the constitution.  It’ll be an interesting legal case.

  138. 138.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 6:20 pm

    @Brachiator:

    we used to have Red Tories here as a majority in the Progressive Conservative Party. They were socially liberal. They funded AIDs clinics, kept abortions legal, increased UI, welfare and immigration.

    They were fiscally conservative, cutting back on wasteful military spending and nixed a bunch of Federal boondoggles, (economic investment when the economy was hot, they preferred to finance those sort of Federal programs when the economy was not).

    Sadly, they are extinct as a species.

    Instead, we have Trudeau, with my one only big gripe, spending billons over the actual value to buy TMP, the expansion is billions over budget, and that whole exercise, didn’t buy him a single Alberta vote, which was the whole point, but it sure pissed off a lot of folks in BC and Indigenous Peoples.

  139. 139.

    O. Felix Culpa

    June 14, 2023 at 6:21 pm

    @Splitting Image:

    A centrist to the very last.

    In which “centrist” = “tiresome scold.”

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    June 14, 2023 at 6:21 pm

     

    @C Stars:

    Yes, she’s always showing up in these ridiculous evening dresses so at the end she must be signaling that she’s meeting James Stewart in the middle, dressing like an “everyman” like him.

    Hitchcock gives Kelly the last word. She is dressed in jeans and reading some book about the Himalayas, indicating that she is  compromising with the character played by Jimmy Stewart. But the last shot in the film shows her putting the book down and picking up a high fashion magazine, Harper’s Bazaar.

  141. 141.

    frosty fred

    June 14, 2023 at 6:22 pm

    @Fleeting Expletive: ​
     

    Jim Hightower

  142. 142.

    narya

    June 14, 2023 at 6:22 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: We’re here, we’re there, we’re everyfuckingwhere.

  143. 143.

    trollhattan

    June 14, 2023 at 6:24 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Did somebody say “Libertarian?” Here’s a fresh take from them.

    https://twitter.com/reshetz/status/1669003636544765952?cxt=HHwWgICw0d79vqkuAAAA

  144. 144.

    Chris Johnson

    June 14, 2023 at 6:25 pm

    @Brachiator: I’ve only recently gone HARD against TYT. The Young Turks are currently acting like paid chaos agents, to the point where they’re pissing off real (pro Ukraine) leftists really badly. They’ve been doing a series of takes that will inevitably lead to a ‘why I left the left’ heel turn.

    And the thing is, Dave Rubin, Jimmy Dore, Michael Tracey, all came through them, so it’s like this isn’t new.

    Assume The Young Turks are the baddest of bad faith. It sure looks like it to me. You gotta be suspicious of the mysteriously super well funded, high production value guys who just need to tell you for the Nth time how Democrats are not your friends…

  145. 145.

    JPL

    June 14, 2023 at 6:29 pm

    @different-church-lady:  That made me laugh.

  146. 146.

    JPL

    June 14, 2023 at 6:31 pm

    @Sparkedcat:  We live in strange times.   Make sure you bring plenty of tums, and if necessary leave a puke bag in the car.

  147. 147.

    Salty Sam

    June 14, 2023 at 6:36 pm

    @Fleeting Expetive:   Hope I’m not the only one who thought of an old saying, “only thing in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” Maybe it’s a Texas thing.  Or something someone famous said. I’m agnostic on its origin.

    That was the title of a book by Jim Hightower, former Texas  Agriculture Commissioner in Anne Richards’ administration.  After the Repub takeover of the Texas State govt, he became a writer/investigative journalist, with a newsletter called “The Hightower Lowdown”

  148. 148.

    Miss Bianca

    June 14, 2023 at 6:36 pm

    @Scout211: Is (some of) our Republicanz learning?

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    June 14, 2023 at 6:39 pm

    @Chris Johnson: TYT’s money may be coming from people like Peter Thiel and David Sacks.

    Are you familiar with the Twitter site, “Post Left Watch?” Their pinned tweet is about funding of Rumble, which hosts people like Jimmy Dore and Aaron Mate. They closely follow actors in the Red-Brown, “Horseshoe” alliance.

  150. 150.

    AWOL

    June 14, 2023 at 6:40 pm

    See Reagan 1980.

    Will is a liar and rat fucker.

    George Will – Wikipedia

  151. 151.

    Sister Golden Bear

    June 14, 2023 at 6:40 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Cornel West??? He has really lost his mind?

    He’s protecting his grift.

  152. 152.

    jimmiraybob

    June 14, 2023 at 6:45 pm

    Sure, Superman has some valid points but so does Bizarro Superman.

    Join us at No Labels, along with our co-founders Joe Lieberman and Lex Luther, where we are absolutely sure that we can find a sensible compromise solution.

  153. 153.

    Miss Bianca

    June 14, 2023 at 6:45 pm

    @Baud: My pal D, the only Libertarian I know who actually doesn’t seem to be nothing but a Republican in disguise, rolled his eyes so hard when I (somewhat gleefully, I confess) told him about this article, I thought they were going to come out of his head.

  154. 154.

    Sister Golden Bear

    June 14, 2023 at 6:48 pm

    Meanwhile the U.S. has an internal refugee crisis as 120,000-260,000 trans people have already fled to safer states, and more than a million are considering doing so, but the mainstream media continues to obsess about drag queen story hours and lies about “groomers.”

    The scale of this issue remained under wraps until a recent Data For Progress survey brought to light the unsettling reality: hundreds of thousands of transgender people have already left their home states, and more than a million are considering a similar course of action in the coming months. These transgender individuals, frequently accompanied by their families, often sacrifice their jobs and relinquish their stability to reach the sanctuary of states willing to facilitate their care and protect them under the law. Should this trend persist, we may witness the largest domestic migration crisis since the Dust Bowl upheaval of the 1940s.

    The numbers are stark. The poll from Data For Progress shows that 8% of all transgender people have already moved out of their community or state as a result of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. An additional 43% of transgender people are likewise considering moving. Transgender people are between 0.5-1% of the population of the United States, meaning that 130-260,000 transgender people have already fled their home states. An additional million transgender people are considering leaving due to the anti-trans legislation that targets them.

    So yeah, fuck Centerists who are OK with splitting the difference between human rights and genocide.

  155. 155.

    jnfr

    June 14, 2023 at 6:49 pm

    So say we all.

  156. 156.

    artem1s

    June 14, 2023 at 6:51 pm

    do libertarians next, plz!

  157. 157.

    persistentillusion

    June 14, 2023 at 6:52 pm

    @Miss Bianca: I do love that Jared, for all his occassional position I oppose, does know how to bring it.

  158. 158.

    Fleeting Expletive

    June 14, 2023 at 6:53 pm

    @Salty Sam: I loved Hightower! Thank you for identifying the author.

  159. 159.

    Miss Bianca

    June 14, 2023 at 6:54 pm

    @trollhattan: Ah, another one of their ice-cold hot takes, I see.

  160. 160.

    Brachiator

    June 14, 2023 at 6:58 pm

    @Jay:

    we used to have Red Tories here as a majority in the Progressive Conservative Party. They were socially liberal. They funded AIDs clinics, kept abortions legal, increased UI, welfare and immigration.

    Thank you for the insights on Canada. I don’t follow the news from there as well as I should. And even here it’s usually through BBC News stories.

  161. 161.

    PaulWartenberg

    June 14, 2023 at 6:58 pm

    These No Labels poseurs are not true centrists. They are warmed-over conservatives desperate to protect tax cuts and deregulation while avoiding the hazards of the racism and sexism that’s overwhelmed the modern Republican Party.

    They can do this because the media always wants a goddamned horse race, and the “third party” vanity antics provide that narrative.

  162. 162.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 7:02 pm

    Meanwhile, Russian occupants in Mariupol are boasting that they have opened “the only circus in the world to feature trained beavers”. pic.twitter.com/6xbDfZMj9W— UNITED24.media (@United24media) June 13, 2023

  163. 163.

    Baud

    June 14, 2023 at 7:03 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Wow. That’s higher than I would have guessed.

  164. 164.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    June 14, 2023 at 7:08 pm

    No Labels is almost like an asshole… it’s in the middle and its purpose is to deliver nothing but shit. Almost, except for the fact that an asshole actually serves everyone.

    No Labels just serves assholes.

  165. 165.

    Jay

    June 14, 2023 at 7:10 pm

    @Baud:

    The numbers will continue to climb, as others leave.

    If Tran’s arn’t safe, and Drag Queen’s arn’t safe, then LGBQ people arn’t safe,……… and it goes on and on.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kelowna-short-hair-girl-gender-identity-1.6875738

    Luckily, we don’t have “free speech” up here and charges will be laid.

  166. 166.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    June 14, 2023 at 7:15 pm

    It’s noteworthy that the only Democrat who ran for President in 2020 who was proposing anything extreme was Andrew Yang. He went on to found the Forward Party, which just so happens to have the same stated mission as No Labels

    @artem1s: do libertarians next, plz!

    All the people I knew who discovered Libertarianism when Ron Paul was running for President went on to be some of Trump’s most vehement supporters. ‘Nuff said.

  167. 167.

    dave319

    June 14, 2023 at 7:23 pm

    @Jeffro: All these “privately, we want him dead” Republican hooftwat assclown traitors had their chance. Twice, there was impeachment. Coulda stopped this malaise douchebag dead, pulled his plug, stood up for their oath to the Constitution, let the process work as it was intended to. The cowards couldn’t find in themselves the decency to do what was right and proper.

    Not for nothing, but there is no one left on this planet who can claim, from the very escalator ride on, that they did nazi Dump, and his value to the dunderheaded base, and their combined value to the fascist project, for exactly what it was–a towering stench of rancid John Birch rabid possum that now had a standard bearer to ooze, scuttle, and shamble behind.

    Dump’s all yours, scumbags. Jacob Marley’s chains got nuthin’ on you , individually and collectively.

  168. 168.

    Dan B

    June 14, 2023 at 8:07 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:  Are there robust programs for assisting Trans who cannot afford to move?  I’ve heard of discussion but no activity.

  169. 169.

    Ixnay

    June 14, 2023 at 8:42 pm

    @Fleeting Expletive: Jim Hightower, a buddy of Mollie Ivins.

  170. 170.

    C Stars

    June 14, 2023 at 9:38 pm

    @Dan B: I don’t know about robust, Sister Golden Bear probably knows more, but from the groups I am involved with of families/guardians of trans young people, there are definitely grass roots support networks starting to develop.

     

    ETA there are some harassment issues that may prevent people from being more open about their plans or mutual aid work.

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