We're noticing the reemergence of an old ploy straight from the GOP playbook, only this time the party has a new target…@jrpsaki breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/wZ55u20476
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) July 2, 2023
He has 2 primary challengers, the fact they're hilariously unqualified isn't anyone's fault. https://t.co/otcg30Vfm9
— agraybee.bsky.social (@agraybee) July 3, 2023
“[Biden] also does not always remember the words most American politicians use to describe same-sex people.” I doubt he’s the only one confused here. For instance, what in the hell is a “same-sex person”? https://t.co/1UQe3fziSB pic.twitter.com/S3HTGXIJ3F
— Gene Healy (@GeneHealy) July 4, 2023
The same NYTimes that’s been publishing an endless parade of Are the transgenders even entitled to exist? ‘think pieces’ would like you to know that President Grandpa may have his heart in the right place, but he’s not very fluent in the latest vocab — “Biden Sidesteps Any Notion That He’s a ‘Flaming Woke Warrior’”:
President Biden memorably jumped the gun on Barack Obama in endorsing same-sex marriage more than a decade ago, but at a June fund-raiser near San Francisco, he couldn’t recall the letters L.G.B.T.Q.
And even as the Democratic Party makes the fight for abortion rights central to its political message, Mr. Biden last week declared himself “not big on abortion.”…
White, male, 80 years old and not particularly up-to-date on the language of the left, Mr. Biden has largely avoided becoming enmeshed in contemporary battles over gender, abortion and other hotly contested social issues — even as he does things like hosting what he called “the largest Pride Month celebration ever held at the White House.”
Republicans have tried to pull him in, but appear to recognize the difficulty: When G.O.P. presidential candidates vow to end what they derisively call “woke” culture, they often aim their barbs not directly at Mr. Biden but at big corporations like Disney and BlackRock or the vast “administrative state” of the federal government. Republican strategists say most of their party’s message on abortion and transgender issues is aimed at primary voters, while Mr. Biden is seen as far more vulnerable in a general election on the economy, crime and immigration…
“Everybody wants to talk about how old Joe Biden is, but the truth of the matter is it’s his age and his experience that allow him to be who he is and allow him to say the things and to help people in a way that nobody else can,” said Henry R. Muñoz III, a former Democratic National Committee finance director. Mr. Muñoz, who is gay, had Mr. Biden serve as his wedding officiant in 2017…
He has also been on the forefront of recognizing transgender rights. In his first week in office, Mr. Biden ended the Trump-era ban on transgender troops in the military. In December, he signed into law federal protections for same-sex marriages.
At the same time, Mr. Biden has not adopted the terminology of progressive activists or allowed himself to be drawn into public debates that might leave him outside the political mainstream. On Thursday, after the Supreme Court’s major ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions, a reporter asked him, “Is this a rogue court?”
Pausing to think for a moment, Mr. Biden responded, “This is not a normal court.”
Paraphrasing two of the conservative justices, he said: “There’s no constitutional right in the law for H-B, excuse me, for gay, lesbian, you know, the whole, the whole group. There’s no constitutional protection.”
During a stop at the Iowa State Fair during his 2020 campaign, a conservative provocateur trailing the Democratic presidential candidates asked Mr. Biden, “How many genders are there?”
Mr. Biden replied: “There are at least three. Don’t play games with me, kid.”…
If these are the most terrible, horrible, very bad, no good quotes the FTFNYTimes can find on the record… I don’t think President Biden is liable to lose many people who were actually gonna vote for a Democrat regardless.
On The Road – BillinGlendaleCA – Arches in the Sky
Tony Jay
Good Morning, America. Another birthday in the rear view mirror, and just the clean-up to look forward to.
Baud
So Biden isn’t adopting a strategy that the people he beat in the 2020 primary did and that’s a criticism of him?
This is straight up trolling of liberals by the paper of record. Any liberal or progressive that falls for this propaganda deserves the fascism they get.
And I suspect a tiny but noisu portion desire the fascism because they know the burden will fall on others.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
If we don’t stop partying, we never have to clean up.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
bbleh
Now now, let’s show some compassion for the poor souls at TNYT; they have deadlines, and column-inches to fill, and doing actual research about important or interesting topics — let alone thinking about them and contributing something useful — is hard. Much easier to spin a bunch of fluff about nonexistent horse-races and trivial non-issues. And after all, the paycheck’s the same either way.
bbleh
@Tony Jay: I’ve always found it to be an interesting experiment to just leave it and see how much of it cleans up itself. Or decays into useful topsoil.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Today is the 5th anniversary of the day we moved from Iowa to Illinois. It looks like an even better decision now than it did then.
Baud
@bbleh:
Eh, someone had to take valuable time to compile the slips of the tongue. The NYT hasn’t gone full Chat GPT yet. They’re just offensive to their readers and will continue to be so because they know they can get away with it.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Maybe you’re the reason Iowa fell so far over the last five years.
Betty Cracker
The Biden messaging strategy is smart because it affirms personal freedom for individuals and tells the busybodies who want to impose their religious codes on everyone else to mind their own damn business. I think that’s where most Americans are.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I like it because it happens to be true.
OzarkHillbilly
What happens when DEMs are in control:
What happens when republicans are:
Yeah, we all know this, but it’s good to see the results of DEM majorities.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Honestly, I marvel at the change in Iowa, and not in a good way. Iowa voted for Obama.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thank you. Agree 100%.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
So did Florida and Ohio.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No hangovers too.
Anne Laurie
Agreed! I think Mind Your Own Damn Business ought to be the overarching theme for Democrats in 2024.
Anyway
deleted
p.a.
Not so strange bedfellows. Some of this goes back to W (& before?) when the US joined w Muslim nations to fight against abortion/birth control internationally, defunding (or trying to defund) UN & other women’s health programs worldwide, before and after 9/11, when Islam became the new communism.
Baud
@Anyway:
Ohio went for Obama both times.
Baud
@p.a.:
Reagan started the defunding of international orgs, I believe.
Anyway
@Anne Laurie:
Yes, this is a great slogan but undermined by the the “don’t say homeless, say unhoused” faction.
I get it – Dem gov and admin is not the same as activists fighting for change but the latter are loud and can look the same to normies.
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
Until the NYT runs a 10 part front page report on gas stoves!
Betty Cracker
@Baud: You’re right. I think NC flipped back to red in 2012, and Florida nearly did but stayed blue in a close race. I’ve often wondered what lessons we can glean from that, and I think the primary one is that PBO was an extraordinary political talent.
Baud
Hot tub time machine time: “Obama said 57 states!”
Anyway
@Baud:
OMG you’re right – I forgot those halcyon times… when Ohio voted for a D president …
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
No argument here.
twbrandt
Twitter links are working again for people without an account. Elon must have gotten hit with a cluestick.
Baud
To be fair, we’ve since flipped AZ and GA.
Baud
@twbrandt:
Or paid his Google bill.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I saw that NYT story in the actual physical edition had a different title: GOP Finds It Hard to Tie Biden to Culture Wars
From the headline alone, it sounds much more neutral than the story was. I was actually shocked by how slanted it was writte
What was the context for this quote?
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
He said he was Catholic and his personal beliefs are not in favor of abortion. IIRC the whole quote correctly, he was 100% pro-abortion rights.
You are correct to identify this as pure propaganda. It’s basically premised on the idea that people who support abortion rights are idiots.
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: There have been significant demographic shifts in Florida and Ohio, and I’d guess Iowa as well.
Florida is pulling in all the crazy, and Ohio has been bleeding young people and seeing a contraction in its cities. Every where other than Florida, because of the retiree dynamics, when there’s economic activity that leads to good paying jobs for young people and the cities are growing we start to win and when young and educated people flee the state and the cities are struggling or sinking things get worse for us
This is part of what concerns me about NC and Georgia. The anti abortion rights position of those states, coupled with the tendency of GOP run states to worsen economic conditions may start reversing the trends we’ve been seeing. I think Georgia is maybe a little less likely to go as far NC so that may work out okay for us, but we really need both states to be places we can pick up Senators.
And it’s why I’m really against calls to starve red states of federal money or calls for disinvestment by businesses. We need more not less investment so, especially young, people want to stay in those places. Or they become permanent red state wastelands.
Betty Cracker
@Anyway:
I want to be careful here because IMO, there’s a huge difference between people who scold others for stuff like saying “homeless” instead of “unhoused” and right-wing extremists who scream “groomer” at school administrators during PTA meetings. One group means well but can put people off with their zeal, whereas the other is unhinged and actively destructive.
But a persistent political problem for Dems has been that mainstream candidates are held responsible for the rhetoric and actions of the leftward fringe, whereas Repubs historically escape that accountability for their extremists. It seems to be changing lately, but not because the political conversation is now more evenhanded but because the GOP extremists now run that party.
p.a.
@Baud:
Yes but that was just general decades old conservative clap-trap for the most part. The wedding of 21st century Talibangelicals via the USG (when it’s amenable) with their ostensible Muslim enemies to deprive women of healthcare was “interesting”, and shows the current attempt to join with them, now at the state & local level, against LGBTQIA isn’t something new under the sun.
Betty Cracker
@Eolirin: I agree and did not mean to imply the only factor was Obama’s political talent, but it definitely looks like a major factor, especially if you look at trends in the statewide races happening during that same era. He overperformed consistently.
twbrandt
@Baud: the reporting I’ve seen in the tech press says he paid the Google bill at the last minute.
bbleh
@Baud: no no, not offensive, “challenging!” It’s Bold, Fearless Journalism™! And if both sides are complaining then they must be doing it right!
(tbf, a lot of their actual reporting, eg on foreign and actual domestic issues, can be top-notch. But the political stuff, oy…)
OzarkHillbilly
Whoa, this could be big, really big:
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Thanks. I figured it was grossly taken out of context. I don’t read the NYT that often so maybe it’s gone downhill worse recently, but I don’t remember it ever being that outright blatant
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@twbrandt:
Or Yaccarino said – “fix it or I will noisily quit”.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Gamechanger indeed! Better range, faster charging, lower cost: everything the EV hesitant could want in a vehicle.
Jackie
@twbrandt: So it is!
Until the next time…
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I couldn’t find a transcript but this story provides more context.
By the way, in searching for this, I came across stories by people who I describe in Comment # 2.
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I left Iowa for grad school in 1974 and for good in 1976. Seeing Iowa now makes me incredibly sad. But I have never regretted my exit.
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: Sure. Just, I don’t think he could win in Ohio today even with that. Maybe Florida.
Ohio is disappointing. Though with all the reinvestment, maybe things will start to turn around. If we can bring that back in our column, especially making the senate seats more competitive, it’ll go a long way. Though I think we’ll get NC first as long as they don’t wreck things too bad over there.
Caveatimperator
@Betty Cracker:
Anybody who decides to vote Republican because some Democratic or left-leaning activists annoyed them about saying “unhoused” instead of “homeless” or “LGBTQ” instead of “gay rights” was never on our side. And most likely always intended to vote Republican and was just fishing for an excuse.
If you’re so thin-skinned that some criticism of the phrasing you use hurts you more than attempts to ban abortion or take books about race or LGBT issues out of your kids’ schools, you’re not a reliable vote for our side.
Jackie
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s great news! 🤞🏻🤞🏻
satby
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not really out of context since Biden is an observant Catholic and being personally “not big” but publicly supportive of abortion rights is descriptive of at least 75% of American Catholics, despite the obnoxious minority who tries to make it seem otherwise.
Eolirin
@OzarkHillbilly: Tesla is so going to get run over now that the majors are taking this stuff seriously. Without Musk fucking with stuff maybe they’d have had a chance.
Caveatimperator
@satby:
It is out of context because it’s purposefully trying to paper over Biden’s views. Plenty of Democrats (usually religious ones) are personally uncomfortable with abortion but also very much opposed to making it illegal. You can advocate for the legality of something you personally do not ever want to do because you believe it’s more moral than banning it.
Saying “not big on abortion” without that additional context makes it look like he doesn’t want to fight for it. Which is false.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@satby:
I meant that the NYT was taking what he said out of context (“not big on abortion”) in the story quoted from the blog post above. At least, that’s how I read it
BruceFromOhio
@Tony Jay: We’ve trashed the place, no doubt about it.
twbrandt
@OzarkHillbilly: that’s interesting, given that Toyota has been lagging in developing EVs, and were pushing fuel cells hard pretty recently.
Caveatimperator
@Eolirin:
For a long time, I believed that Tesla’s financial problems would lead to it eventually getting bought out by one of the bigger carmakers who had a better understanding of how to design and manufacture cars, but they would hold onto the brand name and keep using it as one of their luxury lines.
Now Musk has made it so toxic that they may not even do that.
BruceFromOhio
Cue the purity ponies in 3 .. 2 ..
...now I try to be amused
@Betty Cracker:
“Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.” — Robert Heinlein, “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”
OzarkHillbilly
Taliban order closure of beauty salons in Afghanistan
Yes, because women with stylish hair and well manicured nails are the real threat to manhood in Afghanistan.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
bbleh
@Eolirin: @Betty Cracker: I think the disinvestment trend is real and it’s not going to abate, regardless of who calls for what. Dems aren’t going to defund red states, not least because by doing so they’d be hurting the people who most need help, and Dems actually believe in using government to help people who need it. And businesses are gonna make decisions on their own terms. The problem I see is, a lot of young people and talented not-young people are offended by the ethno-religio-nationalists (aka Ameronazis) and don’t want to live in red states, and that is perfectly evident to businesses, some of whom decide to disinvest (or not invest in the first place) because they know they’re gonna have trouble hiring and retaining talented people.
There will be a countervailing trend though, eg as has at times motivated European companies to invest in red states, ie that they have a reasonably well-educated but low-cost labor force. IOW, they’re maquiladora territory. I can see this continuing, with the result that red states don’t become so much economic “wastelands” as second-world, sorta like parts of Eastern Europe compared to Germany. Not a pretty picture …
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Caveatimperator:
Exactly what I was getting at. As you say, it’s papering over his views to make it seem like he doesn’t care or want to fight for abortion rights, in order to make it look like he’s out of step with the Dem Party.
Dems in Disarray redux
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Glad to have you here in the Land of Lincoln🤗
Baud
I do think that, just as the anti-choice movement was beset with grifters, we need to keep an eye out for pro-choice grifters who act like they want to restore abortion rights but undermine efforts to do so in order to keep the money flowing.
Betty Cracker
@Caveatimperator:
I mostly agree but highlighted the operative word: Unfortunately, we really do need those unreliable voters to win a sufficient number of elections to make meaningful change.
That’s why I think the messaging strategy we’re discussing here — freedom for individuals and MYOB to those who would impose their code on everyone else — is so powerful. It doesn’t require 100% buy-in from every voter for each constituency’s activists’ agenda.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Baud:
NARAL is at the top of my list on that status, and to some extent, the ACLU (which spends way to much time and talent on free speech for Nazis).
Soprano2
@Eolirin: The same thing has happened in Missouri. As St. Louis and KC shrank, the power of the Democratic Party also shrank, even though the rural areas are shrinking, too. I think the mid-sized cities and suburbs are growing.
satby
@Caveatimperator: @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It might be silly of me, but every day is not such a fresh new day that my memory banks are completely wiped from all that’s occurred previously. People who read the NYT are presumably similarly able to retain contexts not exhaustively spelled out in every story, and anyone familiar with President Biden knows his faith and his record on pro-choice. We don’t need a Rachel Maddow styled buildup to every quote.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@The Fat Kate Middleton: Reynolds is, indeed, a *special* kind of politician.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Nobody wants an abortion, until they need one.
BruceFromOhio
@Baud: Watch what they do, as much as what they say. And to whom. A pretty mailer and snappy slogan can belie what lies beneath. Saw that with legalizing weed in the buckeye.
Elizabelle
@The Fat Kate Middleton: Which means what? Who or what do you speak of?
Soprano2
I agree, but these two things can look the same to apolitical normies. I know even as a liberal it gets tiresome to feel that the language you can acceptably use is constantly changing, and that if you use the wrong word you’ll be upbraided by lots of people who have little grace in doing it. I have sympathy for people trying to wrap their minds around transgender and non-binary concepts, because even though I’ve learned a lot about them I still struggle sometimes. When I see people who are obviously men and who are wearing makeup, working in Sephora, I struggle with that. Those of us who are older need some time and space to make adjustments, is what I’m saying. I’m not against these things, I’m just startled by them sometimes.
Layer8Problem
@Elizabelle: I believe meaning their governor?
satby
Totally agree.
Chief Oshkosh
@Eolirin: Agreed. But setting Musk aside (please!), Tesla’s apparent business model, one in which they do not change the physical product at least every couple of years, cannot withstand healthy competition, IMO. For instance, the decision to go all-touchscreen was “cool” and likely helped sell more Tesla’s early on. However, a lot of the widening market wants tactile controls, which are much easier to use reliably and safely. Tesla simply isn’t set up to deal with a total revamp of it’s physical product; software upgrades just ain’t gonna cut it.
Eolirin
@bbleh: Only some red states get that to happen. Ohio will probably be one of them, though I still hold out hope we can get them back over the hump into something better.
But some places turn into Mississippi.
satby
@Eolirin: welcome to Indiana.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
That was nothing more than a Poll Tax😠😠😠
Ken
@Baud: I sometimes wonder what’s happened to the billboard industry post-Dobbs. They must have lost a third of their customers, judging by the number of anti-abortion billboards I used to see on the highways.
Eolirin
@satby: The quote was being used in a way that was counter to its context. That’s inherently misleading. If the text surrounding it had been about how Biden’s faith hasn’t impacted his unwavering support for abortion rights it’d be one thing.
Like there’s a very valid piece that actually holds to that more neutral print headline, that looks at how Biden is able to disarm a certain amount of criticism by focusing more on action than being concerned with language, but that wasn’t the piece that got written.
OzarkHillbilly
I was working on a job where one of the laborers had painted fingernails. The comments I heard from my fellow carpenters, electricians, plumbers, Iron workers, etc etc were so regressive I felt the need to take his side in saying, “So the F what? It’s got nothing to do with you.” I got some strange looks too after that.
Eolirin
@Soprano2: Even just the “are obviously men” part of that kinda illustrates what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t make that assumption.
Steeplejack
Huh, the Times (belatedly) changed “same-sex people” to “LGBTQ people” in that story.
Ramalama
The term same-sex person reminds me of my Dad referring to oven mitts and hot pan lifters.
I’d wear a T-shirt saying “Same Sex Person for Joe Biden.”
signed,
Hot Pan Lifter
(and same sex person)
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: You’ve just articulated the perfect 2024 slogan for the Democratic Party:
Kudos! ;-)
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
And it’s something Joe would actually say.
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: That’s our culture war slogan at least. We really need another slogan for this election to be No One is Above the Law, not even Supreme Court justices.
satby
@Eolirin: Ok, I didn’t read it (won’t pay that rag), so I can’t actually say. My point was more about informed citizens needing to read with a discerning eye and often supply their own context. Since it’s a regular failure of our media it’s on us. All of us.
Ironically, I doubt most “normies” would struggle with that “lack of context” because a lot of them hold the same view as Biden. They don’t obsess over phrasing. It’s a pretty common view; and why I think the MYOB platform would sell well.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: The words I live by. Or at least try to. Pretty sure I don’t always measure up.
bbleh
@Eolirin: yeah thinking also of TN, AR, AL, the Carolinas, IN, and parts of WI and MO, and I think the trend can fairly be said to encompass a growing chunk of the agricultural Midwest (excluding undocumented workers) as the sector becomes more concentrated and industrialized. But yes there are places like MS, and I fear increasingly WV and KY, where poverty is endemic and there’s no clear way out, and I think they’re in a category by themselves.
(And yes, these are all gross generalizations, speaking of states as though they’re uniform, but we’re talking state-level data so …)
Betty Cracker
@Ramalama: I love that — “hot pan lifter.” :)
Jeffro
I’m wondering why the top news story of the day isn’t that a completely unhinged ex-president told his cult followers – on July 4th, no less – that the Special Counsel (who he referred to as “deranged” and a “sick puppet”) should be “put out to rest”.
trump has been making a point to mention Jack Smith’s wife, family, and friends for months now.
And now we have “put [him] out to rest”.
Grab the nearest GOP politician and shove a microphone in their face and ask them “What do you think about the ex-president’s increasing attempts at intimidation and obstruction of the Special Counsel?”, snooze media. Let’s go!
Steeplejack
@twbrandt:
Sort of. If I go to a specific tweet such as the Jen Psaki one above I can get to it, but if I try to go to an account, like twitter.com/InsideWithPsaki, I get the same blockage as before.
ETA: True for me on Win11 with Firefox and Android with Samsung browser.
Jay C
@Chief Oshkosh:
Well, Tesla’s business model has been pored over by analysts for years, now: and the predictions of doom haven’t yet come to pass; and actually may not. At least not for a lot longer than previously postulated. Yes, that “healthy competition” -i.e. other, (much) bigger manufacturers (GM, Toyota, VW, etc.) finally getting into EV production in a serious way is going to impact their growth potential, if only on the price-point level; but Tesla has spent a couple of decades building up brand recognition and corporate reputation*, and is likely to retain a reasonable amount of market share to be able to maintain a position as a “specialty”/”luxury” marque for EVs well into the future. Maybe.
*both good and bad, of course.
Eolirin
@satby: Yeah. I broadly agree with that.
And I think Biden is able to fundamentally embody his own values, and I think people respond to that. It’s not just talk with him, which is what is lot of the language policing, no matter how well meaning and in some cases despite it being very necessary, tends to come across as.
Raoul Paste
@OzarkHillbilly: I have been working in the solid-state battery space for years, and this is an incredible achievement.
There have been so many “breakthrough“ announcements over the last few years that turn out to be piffle. But this, the implications are staggering.
Eolirin
@Jay C: The self driving stuff and related fraud to the public over it may end up killing them as a brand.
And that’s entirely a self own.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: What I tell myself when things surprise me like that is “you know, when you were young, you wanted to live in a science-fiction world that was constantly serving up oddball surprises? Well, you do. Maybe not in the way you expected, but there it is.”
The social changes (not just concerning gender roles) create some awkward issues and puzzles, but they’re interesting ones. I’m gonna screw up sometimes, but part of the right attitude is not to be perfect but to be open to correction and take it in a spirit of learning.
satby
@Jeffro: To me, a much bigger deal. As was tfg putting Obama’s home address out and inspiring a nutty follower to go to the Obama’s home packing a large load of weapons in his van.
Tfg is trying to get his opponents assassinated.
Matt McIrvin
(Sephora seems to be very open to hiring trans staff btw, I’ve seen some there too)
Baud
@Jeffro:
If it doesn’t happen on a tarmac, it’s not really a big deal.
Dopey-o
Life-long Catholic here, never had an abortion (I haz a penis, thankewverrymuch!).
None of my bizness who has an abortion. Altho I have driven a few to the clinics.
Just got news last night that a friend’s daughter conquered cancer and is expecting her first child in December. Also none of my bizness, except FUCK CANCER !
Suzanne
That makes him perfect on this issue, then, IMO. Like, it is okay to acknowledge one’s personal feelings and values around a situation, and then to understand that public policy shouldn’t reflect those feelings and values. That’s incredibly rational. That’s, in fact, what I wish every American would do.
Mike E
@Eolirin:
Plenty of NC peeps here would love for this nightmare to be over though we have serious doubts about it happening soon… we’ve been held hostage since the TEApublican takeover a dozen years ago and the NC Dem party is in an early stage rebuild. Sadly.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: Non-binary individuals might also fall under the “confusing to olds” category without being transgender individuals.
Bupalos
@bbleh:
I harp on it all the time, but the red-state/blue state delusion is largely particular to the internet and this kind of hyper political community. The vast majority of emigres aren’t leaving (insert red or blue state) because of the redness or blueness of laws or for the most part general character. Every state contains particular places as blue or red as the generally reddest or bluest state. Attention to national elections and the electoral college distort the realities here.
Eolirin
@Mike E: Even taking that into account, I think you’ll turn things around faster than Ohio does.
Ken
@Jay C: Tesla is (IMO) an example of the adage about “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”. Emphasis on the irrational — as other posters have noted, there is no way that a company with their sales figures should have that market cap.
Matt McIrvin
@Caveatimperator: There’s gonna be so much of this chaff–stories designed to split us apart, and I’m already kind of dismayed at the extent to which liberals and leftists I know are willing to fall for them. They’re not in “campaign time, suspect any and all smear stories” mode. This is where I think their general disenthusiasm about Biden becomes a liability–sure, most of them will still vote for him, but they’ll propagate this stuff in the meantime.
Cameron
@Soprano2: I would never change my vote because of somebody else’s prissy, pissy, constipated opinion on what language is socially appropriate. I would be more inclined to engage in dialogue: “Your concern for socially acceptable terminology is something I can heartily endorse. In the interest of promoting what is culturally ideal and socially empathetic, I’m going to self-censor and instead of calling you ‘smacked ass’ I’ll refer to you as ‘reproved buttocks.'”
JML
@Eolirin: I think you’re right about Biden and values. The other aspect of it is that Biden always comes off meaning well and from a place of decency and kindness, so when people also take into account his speech impediment it’s much easier to give him some room on not quite getting the vocabulary right.
It reminds me a little bit of Mark Dayton back when he was governor of MN. Mark had tangled sentences, strangled vocabulary, and outright gaffes from time to time but it didn’t really hurt him politically. Why? People had decades of experience with Mark Dayton and trusted him and his basic decency as a person. I literally heard someone talking about one of his malapropisms on the campaign trail and they just shrugged it off, saying “It’s Mark. I know what he meant.”
I think Biden gets a lot of the same credit with the average person. (and I think it drives political reporters craaaaaazy)
Eolirin
@Bupalos: They absolutely are leaving their states due to a lack of investment in the kinds of infrastructures, physical and social necessary to maintain services and economic opportunity, which correlate pretty heavily with “red” and “blue” approaches to governance.
And when it gets extreme enough, see Florida, people are 100% fleeing or avoiding the state because they’re being deliberately targeted. Or the reason why they’d want to go to that place (solid and affordable higher education) is being systematically dismantled. Large numbers of young people don’t want to be places where there’s no abortion access it a functioning educational system for their eventual or recent kids. And they are more sensitive to cultural issues than older people, as a group. The character of a place does matter to them and they vote with their feet. Picking a College is a large part of that.
So the governance models lead to broad trends around demographic distribution which correlate to political outcomes. It doesn’t matter in a political context that there are really blue parts of a really red state when those blue parts are being strangled out of existence by bad laws and lack of investment. They need to get bigger to change outcomes, and they’re getting smaller.
H.E.Wolf
@twbrandt:”Twitter links are working again for people without an account.”
May have been a temporary change? It’s not the case now. Ah, well.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Advances in materials science contribute greatly to the clean energy transition. Another interesting area is calcium based batteries. They probably will not displace lithium-ion batteries in vehicles because they weigh more, but calcium-ion batteries may have widespread application in home and industrial-scale energy storage.
Caveatimperator
@Eolirin:
The part that scares me is the way the public in a lot of those states accepts the dismantling of major public goods and government programs.
Let’s talk about Brownback in Kansas. Kansas is a state that is ruby red at the presidential level, but currently has a Democratic governor in part because Brownback fucked the state so badly. Voters, even conservative ones revolted because they wanted a government that would perform basic functions like keeping schools running.
But in a lot of states, it seems as though taking a hammer to the universities and the roads and the healthcare system doesn’t have an effect on voters. The voting public is Republican enough, and the Republicans as a whole are so focused on grievance politics and culture wars and owning the libs, that the collapse of the state doesn’t matter to them.
Steeplejack
@satby:
I know. When I read that it’s like “Shut up and take my money!”
Matt McIrvin
@satby: There are also disagreements about labels within the LGBT community–some nonbinary people consider themselves to also be trans (and argue that NB is essentially a subset of trans), but others don’t.
satby
This is OT, but it’s such a great write up of my home city I had to share in case anyone might be heading to Chicago.
The Midwest City With 26 Miles of Shoreline.
Cheryl from Maryland
I notice that FTFNYT doesn’t have the courage to allow comments on these hit pieces.
Matt McIrvin
@Raoul Paste: I always take “revolutionary breakthrough” stories with a grain of salt–most of them turn out to be nothing, or blocked from becoming a real product by some insuperable obstacle, and you can never quite tell which of them will be the subset that really pan out.
But, stepping back, it does seem to me like energy storage tech is subject to a fairly impressive experience curve, similar to, say, photovoltaics and semiconductors–so I’m optimistic about it getting better. People trying to throw cold water on renewable energy always act like good batteries are a mythical chimera, but they were already doing that back when batteries were a lot worse than they are now.
twbrandt
@H.E.Wolf: hmm, when I click on the Jen Psaki tweet up top in the post, I am taken to the tweet. If I go to just twitter.com, it forces me to logon, but going to a specific tweet does not.
satby
@Steeplejack: I’m going to start saving for the eventual vehicle now!
catclub
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
so did Ohio, and even Indiana.
Mike E
@Eolirin: Kay Hagen was the first Dem senator since John Edwards and she was gone after one term…this is a red state masquerading as a purple one, with a solidly repub judiciary, a veto proof legislature and a single redistricting session away from turning our 7-7 congressional delegation into 11-3 (R). Ohio is looking pretty good to me right now, frankly.
catclub
@Caveatimperator:
“Safe, Legal, and rare”. Says the same thing. I think Hillary put it that way.
Frankensteinbeck
@OzarkHillbilly:
Solar power is a big thing now because of Obama’s investment in renewable power research in 2009. Kudos for Carter for trying, but back then it was a miracle if you got enough electricity out of a solar panel in its lifetime to pay for it. That big burst of investment in 2009 got all kinds of technological innovations in reducing materials costs, and that was a complete game changer.
mrmoshpotato
And a neighborhood to rebuild, because wow did it sound like people tried to blow the place up last night.
Suzanne
@catclub: The problem with “safe, legal, and rare” is that last part. Still implies judgment. Leave out “rare”. It’s just respectability politics. Public policy should only be concerned with those first two.
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: Florida and Texas are still growing rapidly, though, and the blue states mostly aren’t. I think we do have to consider the possibility that most people either want to live in an oppressive shithole state, or just don’t care enough for it to override other inducements, which gives the state governments the freedom to abuse their constituents.
Granted, the governments of these states have ramped it up to appalling extremes very recently and there isn’t really good data covering this period.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Or maybe it was a test from the muskrat to see if he could strong-arm people into signing up, and when it didn’t work, he had to back off.
Or, someone hit him with a clue-by-four and he got the message. (highly unlikely)
catclub
@Eolirin:
Can the Surgeon General start saying that living in red states with inadequate (and getting worse) Ob/Gyn care is hazardous to your health?
Maybe moving companies will have to have black box warnings.
Betty Cracker
@Caveatimperator: Sometimes people have to be personally kicked in the head before they care about a well-reported rash of head-kicking going on in their community.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Most people want to be near friends and/or family, good jobs, where they can afford nice places to live (with all that that implies), and have fun things to do. Politics comes low on that list.
Nelle
@The Fat Kate Middleton: Where are you? I’m in Urbandale.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
That’s a great piece, thanks! Always love reading good stuff about my home town. Have passed the link along to my cousin and siblings, who love Chicago as much as I do (yes, even RWNJ brother).
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.
Fair Economist
@Chief Oshkosh:
My husband has a Tesla and the touchscreen everything is just *so* dangerous. I have to take my attention off the road for precious seconds to adjust the music volume, turn on the fan, anything. And worst, most functions are buried one or two levels deep in modal menus. It’s a real hazard.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: Back in Carter’s time, the types of solar energy that made some practical sense were thermal: solar water heater panels like the ones he put on the White House, and solar thermal generation plants. Back then, if you saw a major photovoltaic installation (on Earth), it was an expensive showpiece–but that wasn’t the only kind of solar.
But everything’s changed. PV has pretty much trounced its competitors for most applications.
catclub
@Suzanne:
I think we will have to disagree. rare means to me improved birth control methods and coverage that reduce the frequency of abortions.
Kay
@Eolirin:
This oversimplifies. Ohio is not going to turn into Mississippi.
Cincinnati and Columbus are both growing – Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) is not but the exurbs outside Cleveland are growing. I think the whole thing is better understood as parts of these states diverging from other parts of the same state- so rural Indiana diverging from Indianapolis (which is booming) or a rural county like mine in NW OH declining while Columbus booms.
What changed were the margins. So where Democrats used to do 45/55 in my county they now do 25/75 and the urban counties – even w/2012 turnout- can’t make up that margin.
Ken
@Matt McIrvin: I will admit that when I read “simplified production of the material used to make them”, I briefly wondered at what cost. Not just monetary, but does the new process use a lot of energy, or generate a lot of waste, or require a dozen endangered sea turtles for each battery?
Geminid
@twbrandt: I think Toyota has lagged in EVs because they were waiting for developments like this that make EVs more practical. Also maybe to let charging infrastructure be built out.
Toyota has not given up on fuel cell powered cars, but that technology is better suited for heavier transport. And the fueling infrastructure is still deficient, as is production of “green” hydrogen. But the EU plans to produce tens of millions of tons of green hydrogen by 2030, and Plug Power has already sold its electrolysis units to a German steel mill, a Swedish glass factory, and a Norwegian aluminum recycling facility.
I saw an interesting fuel cell story the other day. The town of Calistoga, California has been renting diesel generators in order to cope with long power outages caused by wildfires. Now they’ve signed a contract to rent fuel cell generators for that purpose.
Jeffro
amen!
we’ve had our system for 3 1/2 years now, haven’t had an electric bill since, and over its 25-30 year lifetime should net save us anywhere from $35-55k
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“How stupid are the people of Iowa?”
Well, enough voted for your Soviet shitpile mobster conmanbaby ass after you called them stupid!
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: I just want the hot tub part.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Some younger family members who live in red states put up with things because they are always out voted by conservatives. But so far, the actual constraints on their lives are minor. They live in pockets of more liberal behavior.
And a few people I know who moved to red states picked the most liberal communities they could find.
Suzanne
@catclub: This was a big flashpoint a few years ago, led to a lot of pieces like this one “Dear Politicians, Put ‘Safe, Legal, and Rare’ in the Dustbin“.
I tend to co-sign this:
Baud
@Jeffro:
@Jeffro:
More hot tub time machine: But Solyndra!!!
Kay
@Eolirin:
If Democrats describe these states as veering towards Mississippi that won’t ring true to people in these states because it isn’t true. Land values have gone up 40% over a decade in Columbus. It’s not dying. You can’t find a house in some of the more fashionable and close-in Columbus neighborhoods – not an “affordable” house- a house. Indianapolis has an insanely hot housing market and major, Fortune 500 employers. People have not outright rejected the GOP in many of these states because college educated people are doing just fine in them.
mrmoshpotato
@twbrandt: Still can’t read Twitter without an account. :(
Tony Jay
@Baud:
This motto wins elections!
@bbleh:
That’s the Secretary of the Environment post and the Green Policy proposal filled. Multi-task!
@BruceFromOhio:
Ghostly voice emanates from a sealed tomb deep beneath Westminster Abbey “Aaaaand it waaaaasn’t theeeeeir plaaaace…“
OzarkHillbilly
@catclub: Hell’s bells, Misery came this close to going for Obama. So close it took 3 weeks to call it.
Feathers
@Betty Cracker: One real issue is that it kills local organizing. You need the people who do more than vote to be able to hold functional meetings, not just deal with the feelings of folks who want to sulk over the fact that they aren’t living in a multiracial socialist paradise. And they then tend to complain when they are in outside groups. You aren’t going to get committees that are at least a quarter Black in a town that is 3% Black! Raising that percentage is important, but for now we have to work with the people we have living here.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I think it was last used in 2012. That fact that people are still worrying about it does not speak well for our side’s focus in the current fight.
Tony Jay
@catclub:
“What is, ‘The thing Republicans need to be to secure America’s future’?”
Brachiator
@Caveatimperator:
The traditional car companies have not shown that they know how to design and manufacture electric vehicles.
Also, I wonder how expensive it is for them to retool their facilities for EV production.
Baud
@Brachiator:
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have a non-Tesla EV and I think it’s great.
Ken
Just be careful no one is recording the party on their cell phone, especially during a plague. Questions Will Be Raised.
HumboldtBlue
I thought I was prepared for the news. I thought it was the normal course of life that had to be dealt with in its time.
I thought wrong.
My dad died this morning and it’s killing me. I’ve never known this world without that man in it.
I thought I could handle it, wear it like any other burden, recognize it, wear it. Move on.
No. It hurts so damn much. It’s having to tell others. I can deceive myself, try and play the stoic, but that doesn’t work with dozens of nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.
Well fuck.
OzarkHillbilly
Oh, don’t worry, the GOP will get around to banning them too.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
I’m sorry. Give yourself permission to grieve.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Chief Oshkosh: My new car has both a touchscreen AND physical controls. And the touchscreen doesn’t include the emergency brake or the gears.
Suzanne
@Baud: I object to it. Like, if it’s genuinely healthcare, like we say it is, its frequency is immaterial. If someone needs healthcare, they need healthcare.
japa21
@HumboldtBlue:
One is never prepared for this kind of news. So sorry to hear it and our condolences. Losing a parent is always hard.
Suzanne
@HumboldtBlue: Oh no. I’m so, so sorry.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s old news. I object to Southern Dems who were segregationists, but it’s not relevant to the world today to complain about them.
Darkrose
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry. My deepest condolences, HB.
Miss Bianca
@Anne Laurie:
I sense a theme song for the campaign…
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Also, the idea of rare doesn’t work with right wing absolutists. For them, abortion is a crime, not a sin.
SWMBO
@HumboldtBlue:
My condolences. I lost my dad to a drunk driver in a head on car crash and my mother died in November 2020 of covid (about 6 weeks before the vaccines were available). It is hard to lose a parent so quickly.
Peace and comfort to all your family.
Thor Heyerdahl
@HumboldtBlue: Deepest condolences to you and your family
UncleEbeneezer
@Caveatimperator: Agreed. But the real danger of activist tone-policing over language isn’t turning people into GOP voters. The danger is in producing a shit-load of Anti-Dem fodder that gives unenthusiastic voters who should be on our side just enough righteous-feeling justification to sit out elections. This was the whole point of Putin’s huge disinfo campaign against Hillary in 2016: to hurt her and reduce Dem turnout just enough to elect Trump. And it worked. Constant reminders of Hillary’s “SuperPredator” quote (taken completely out of context of course) was enough to be cited by people like Elon James White and Michael Harriott (regular voters and consistent Dem supporters) as reason for them to leave the POTUS line of the ballot blank. I know a few people personally who hate the GOP (a Black journalist/activist, a white male ACLU dude and an Indian-American journalist/DSA Leftist) who all proudly refused to vote for Hillary and cited the very same anti-HRC propaganda (including the “SuperPredator” quote) as justification. The Right has been very effective at demonizing the Dem Party over the past 40 years. So much so that there are a bunch of Independent/NPA/Green voters who are always just looking for a reason not to support Dems. It’s those voters who sadly hold many of our elections in their hands. I don’t worry about over-blown activist purity language causing them to vote GOP but I do worry about them allowing good candidates (like Biden, Buttigieg, Kamala etc) to be turned into another Hillary in their minds, and then deciding to not vote, when we need them.
twbrandt
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry. Losing a parent is really hard, expected or not.
Tony Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
There’s no way out but through. And though it’s no comfort, remember that it’s supposed to be this hard, because that’s how much you loved your Dad.
Hugs, mate.
Brachiator
@HumboldtBlue:
My condolences. Please take care.
OzarkHillbilly
@HumboldtBlue: It’s tough, it’s always tough. It’s going to take me a while to put my brother’s death in it’s place. Be patient with yourself.
In the meantime you have my best wishes.
Nelle
@HumboldtBlue: I am so sorry.
Geminid
@Brachiator: GM showed it knows how to build an electric vehicle when they introduced the Chevy Volt five years ago. My landlord has one and his only complaints are its relatively slow charging time, and a shortage of charging stations. Chevies newer EVs will remedy the first problem, and the second will be remedied over the next few years.
The Thin Black Duke
@HumboldtBlue: Damn, man. I’m sorry.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
I agree.
This is an odd thread where people are concerned about an outdated and anachronistic abortion slogan on one hand while others are saying anti-Dem messaging by the NYT and others will have no adverse effect on voting behavior.
Kay
@Brachiator:
They’re retooling right now and it’s huge.Tesla isn’t going to know what hit it when they ramp up. It’s a freight train coming. You know automakers have “summer slowdown” right? Where they retool for the upcoming year? They’re pouring money into EV production this summer. Skilled trades are working 7 days, ten hours. I have never, ever seen anything like it in Ohio and Michigan. Tesla just doesn’t have the scale they have in terms of the physical plant- you can’t “reprogram” a Tesla and compete with big automakers who will be producing different cars- mechanically and physically different.
It always go back to the The Thing in manufacturing- the physical product.
I think they made a mistake discounting Teslas. I think they were well positioned to be a higher end brand with a kind of niche appeal. He’s not going to be able to compete on price. He panicked when sales dipped. A more mature and level headed manager might have stuck with the original concept and eaten a loss for a bit. The spoiled man-baby wet his pants and discounted.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Which one? I am thinking of getting a second hand Leaf.
sdhays
@Fair Economist: At the very beginning when I read that this is what they were doing, I knew that I would never be interested in one (no matter how much they came down in price). It’s textbook awful user interface design, just writing off the designer’s responsibility to make help the driver operate the car safely.
It’s pretty clear they don’t care about safety at Tesla beyond what the government mandates in order to be able to sell the car.
Suzanne
@Brachiator: “Rare” will also mean, in practical terms, more difficult to obtain. Hoops to jump through. I don’t want any hoops.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@HumboldtBlue: my condolences. I have been grateful for the BJ community, I hope you find solace here too.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Bolt. But they’ve discontinued it in favor of a more modern battery architecture, I think.
It works well for my driving habits but the one downside is that you can’t take it on long road trips unless you’re willing to put up with long recharge times.
evodevo
@satby: I still haven’t figured out why there would be a problem understanding multiple gender identities…Mr.Evodevo and I are in our late seventies, went through the late Sixties as 20+ yr olds, and had friends all over the place then who were gay (male and female), bisexual (we used the term AC/DC back then), cross-dressers, etc. etc. It was a time for coming out. The only clueless people we knew were redneck or Xtian, or from the WWII generation. (and we had flannel-shirt-wearing gay guys who farmed places in the next county up) – this was in KY. Anyone nowadays who is still clueless has spent their lives in an impenetrable bubble…
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yep, they retool every year. I know guys who will work that job, 12 hrs a day, 7 days a week, for a whole month and then skate for the next 3 months. Every year.
Jackie
@catclub: I agree. It’s also a reminder red states want to take away women’s birth control.
OzarkHillbilly
US Secret Service investigating as cocaine reportedly found in White House
Prepare for a tsunami of Hunter Biden jokes
Juju
@HumboldtBlue: I’m sorry to hear about your dad. It’s very difficult to lose a parent. You have no choice but to get through it, and you will and it will be hard, but you may not remember how you managed once you get to that place where things are at least somewhat better. My thoughts are with you.
Brachiator
@Caveatimperator:
I think a lot of tone policing is stupid and try to ignore it.
I sometimes write “gay rights” because I cannot remember all of the new initials added to LGBTQ.
And I guess some people’s hearts are in the right place, but I wonder who these fussy people are who constantly need to come up with new words to describe things in ways that they think are, what, more loving and caring?
However, I don’t stubbornly oppose new language, and try to incorporate it as appropriate.
Ken
@HumboldtBlue: My sympathies. It’s coming up on two years since my parents died, and it still hurts sometimes. But it does get better.
Soprano2
@Caveatimperator: I’m not talking about activists or people “on our side” – I’m talking about “normies”, who mostly don’t think about these things but are probably sympathetic to a lot of Democratic positions on issues. If they feel they are constantly being reprimanded by activists about the words they use, then yes they might decide that Democrats are too much like that teacher they hated who was always correcting them about things that don’t actually matter, and go with the side who doesn’t rag on them about word usage all the time (especially when they are sympathetic). I think sometimes fervent activists don’t know how they come across to “normies”. And yes “words matter”, but the way you talk to people about it matters too, and if you are too scolding and unforgiving people will stop listening to you. It’s like the “you should say pregnant people instead of pregnant women” debate.
Steeplejack
@twbrandt:
As I fiddle with it some more, I see that you can ride an external link to an individual tweet but not to a Twitter account—plus in the former case you see only that tweet and no replies to it. A very limited “fix.”
mrmoshpotato
@satby: I saw that lake last night – through a bunch of fireworks smoke!
Ken
Volkswagen is coming out with an electric Thing? Oh joy, oh rapture.
Though it will lose something, not having that weird Thing engine sound. It was like they slipped a two-stroke lawnmower engine in there.
Betty Cracker
@HumboldtBlue: My condolences, friend. It’s so hard to lose a parent, no matter how prepared you think you are for it. Grief is love persisting, and in my experience, it evolves, but it has its own timetable. In the meantime, be good to yourself.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
The right wing is pushing for an outright total ban in states they control and countless barriers and restrictions everywhere else.
They do not believe that women should have control over their own lives and bodies.
And my young niece mentioned the other day that she thinks the right wing will be coming after contraception next.
bbleh
@Bupalos: but state laws and state government policies apply uniformly across a state, and it’s precisely those that are becoming an issue. Lack of Ob/Gyn residents and practitioners is a problem across all of Idaho, urban blue or rural red. Ditto all the awful aspects of DeSatanism across Florida, and the compound idiocy of Abbott in Texas. (Some companies are already reporting trouble hiring to locations in Texas, even in big cities.)
Not saying we’re gonna see mass migration overnight. But as people make choices about where to locate, buy a house, start a family, make a career, etc., or to take that next job, or to retire, I think state laws will be a significant factor that in turn will have material effects.
Miss Bianca
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry to hear it. My condolences.
Steeplejack
@HumboldtBlue:
Condolences on the loss of your father. 🙏
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry! I understand completely. My dad died at 99.5 yrs. Rationally I expected it, but… I was SO FORTUNATE to have my dad for 63 years. My son, who was 37, said he “thought grampa would live forever.”
Sending huge bear hugs to you.
dirge
@catclub:
As a practical goal, “safe, legal, and rare” is hard to argue against, but it’s also necessary to acknowledge its historical context as a slogan. It’s rooted in the 90’s era Democratic Party’s adoption of a defensive crouch on the issue of women’s rights generally, which many now regard as a serious strategic error.
So when you use that phrase, people are going to tend to associate you, fairly or not, with the awful “third way” and “no labels” types who initially promoted it as a way to defend abortion without approving of it.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
This is HUGE though. Ford hired 2500 extra – over and above an ordinary retool. 2500. That’s alot of people working in a plant that is “shut down” :)
They’re going to make cars for drivers instead of making shitty low quality autopilot that doesn’t work.
For people. Drivers don’t like the electronic displays because they’re dumb and distracting and they suck. Weird “look at me!” tech bros who are not drivers or normal people like electronic displays. I don’t want to drive a video game.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s how I am, but honestly it’s startling when you first see it, especially in a space that used to be all women. One of the men had on makeup that made me think of a clown. I won’t let anyone who thinks that kind of makeup looks good help me, because that’s not how I want to look, and I assume they all do their own makeup. This is when nameplates telling me what pronouns people use would be helpful, because I have no idea if that person is a gay man or a non-binary person or a transgender woman.
sdhays
@Suzanne: I always took the “rare” to encompass the importance of other policies, like sex education, accessible birth control, etc – i.e. let’s try to avoid getting in the position of needing an abortion in the first place (which is reasonable, I think, because at best it’s still a hassle for the pregnant person).
Not arguing that my interpretation is “correct”, just sharing. I do think that was part of the argument back in the 90’s.
skerry
@HumboldtBlue: My deepest sympathies. I lost my mother three years ago this week. It still hurts. Be kind to yourself.
Josie
@HumboldtBlue:
So sorry for your loss. I know you will miss him terribly, but you will have good memories to keep him with you.
Soprano2
@Eolirin: Well, I didn’t see any evidence at all that they were transgender except the makeup, what am I supposed to think? The person looked like a man to me. *shrug* This isn’t easy even for someone who is an ally. I cannot imagine what my mother’s reaction to this would have been.
skerry
@Suzanne: I second these sentiments. “Rare” is no body’s business.
Jackie
@Miss Bianca: One of my favorite Hank songs! AND it’s PERFECT for 2024 (and every year for that matter!!!)
Elizabelle
@HumboldtBlue: I am so sorry, HB.
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I had a customer do a second take on a job site, when I showed up with painted nails. Pulled off my workboots and showed that my toe nails were painted too.
My explanation,
Niece’s,………..
Little girls want to have fun, I am down with that, and when they screamed on seeing my (as they put it) “Monster Toenails”, that was just bonus. They still painted them anyway.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Great point. I think the danger of tone policing is two-fold: 1) It can turn off people who aren’t politics junkies, not necessarily driving them into the arms of the GOP but providing bogus support for the notion that both parties are captured by extremists, and 2) As you pointed out, it can give hyperpolitical purity ponies a bogus justification to reject good candidates and therefore make useful idiots of themselves.
FelonyGovt
Quel surprise. In Russia, murderous ex-convicts who were freed to fight with the Wagner Group and are now returning home are killing people as soon as they get back.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Yep, my problem is with the people (and you know they’re out there) who won’t give anyone that grace to get used to something new, but immediately come at you the minute you say or do something “wrong”. I think it helps that I’m a long-time feminist and sci-fi fan, so I’m probably more open than most 62-year-olds to new and unusual things. I’m trying hard to stay that way, even as the world gets more and more different from what I’m used to.
raven
@HumboldtBlue: It’s absolutely normal for you to feel this way and it going to be a good while to come to grips with it. It will hit you over-and-over when you least expect it. Be good to yourself and honor his memory.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue:
I’m so sorry. I lost my parents five years ago, and it still hurts. As others have said, take care of yourself. Grieve.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
Too long for a rotating tag. :(
Soprano2
@satby: Yep, my husband keeps asking me why the non-binary character on “Quantum Leap” dresses like a woman. This is something it’s really hard for older people to wrap their minds around.
WaterGirl
@FelonyGovt: No one could have predicted.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I read a story in the local paper this weekend that 40% of the people living in CA are considering moving, mainly because they cannot find an affordable place to live. They like the government there and the general attitude of the place, but find it unaffordable. That’s why they wind up in places like where I live, because the rent on a house is between $1,000/$1,500 a month rather than $5,000, and they can make enough money here to actually rent a house in a decent neighborhood. CA really needs to solve their housing problem fast.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Yeah, though the people who will take major offense at fine distinctions are mostly active in hothouse environments like college campuses and certain online communities.
mrmoshpotato
@Fair Economist:
Wait. You can adjust volume from the steering wheel in those cool ass Teslas?
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Right, with California specifically the folklore on the right is that population growth has stopped because the state is turning into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but the biggest problem is just that it’s horrifically expensive–I know that’s a big part of the reason why I don’t live there, and a big part of the reason I don’t live closer to Boston too.
Kay
@Brachiator:
I think thatawful, arrogant culture that creates an Elon Musk will always effect Musk’s work. He doesn’t want the big car companies to succeed with EV’s. It goes against his belief system which is that ridiculous, over hyped “disruption” model where employees are expendable and quality doesn’t matter.
I’m betting against him. I hope they roll over him and leave him as a mark in the road. Fundamentals always matter- quality, value over time, experience and paying for talent. No one is “smart” enough to beat fundamentals. His basic premise is unsound.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
It’s just so DUMB. They added a control panel the driver has to look at? They’re not drivers. No driver would do that. They are ridiculous “gamergate” people or something. I don’t live in that world and also? I don’t want to.
CaseyL
@HumboldtBlue: I am so sorry. Losing a parent is huge; it makes you feel untethered.
May his memory be a blessing, for you and your family.
Manyakitty
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry for your loss. May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration. Sending love to you and your family.
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: Florida has population growth due to retirees and it slants the direction of the state, Texas is trending blue even if it may never quite get there. Blue states can be stagnant population wise, or even be shedding population, but their cities are extremely desirable and economically vibrant. In most cases population lossage in blue states are due to cost of living issues driven by housing costs not to to a lack of jobs or opportunities. Or is collapse of rural areas.
Maybe New Hamsphire is an exception to this? I don’t know that much about the state.
But the divide in the county is urban versus rural, young versus old, educated versus not. City growth is a big driver of trend because it tends to capture all three.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Musk had a genuine problem dealing with the car-dealership ecosystem, which for reasons we’ve covered before hates and fears electric cars (less maintenance revenue, general ideological loathing). I think that was a place where systemic disruption really was needed. But anything Musk can do, the legacy car manufacturers could do.
mrmoshpotato
@mrmoshpotato: Dammit! *CAN’T
satby
@HumboldtBlue: Condolences to you, your family, and all who loved your dad. Even as it becomes obvious that life is a terminal condition, you’re never really ready when a loved one goes.
Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
I am so sorry. Take care of yourself. It’s hard.
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: NH is a weird case, not as anomalous as Vermont but still weird: a genuine purple/swing state with a bizarre libertoonian tradition, post-industrial cities along the Merrimack Valley contiguous with northeast Mass., big rural areas. The southeastern corner is suburban Boston, but a lot of the people who go there to live are right-wingers who specifically want to not live in Massachusetts.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Agree 100%.
The discussion here about women and girls sports and gender issues makes me cringe, honestly, as a political person. Yelling that girls sports “don’t matter” probably isn’t the way to sell this and it’s also insanely sexist. When we have a commenter who works at a high school teling us that the girls sports issue matters to 1. him because he’s a coach and 2. normies in general and he’s met with screams of “why do you CARE about girls sports?!” for the sin of suggesting there be fucking guidelines?
WTF. Just a suggestion. If you consider yourself an “ally” don’t behave like that. You will lose and you will deserve to lose. You need high school teachers who coach girls sports. Cannot do it without them. Add, don’t subtract.
CaseyL
@evodevo:
I spent most of my 20s through 40s years attending a slew of SciFi conventions, where notions of identity (gender, race, and even species identity, for FSM sake) were extremely flexible, to say the least. It absolutely shaped my viewpoints and attitudes.
I’m not sure the same would be true today, though, as SciFi fandom splintered, starting when gaming became a Thing. Gaming quickly became both a large part of conventions AND overrun by RW assholes.
Geminid
@Eolirin: I think New Hampshire’s southeastern corner has seen a lot of growth because of its proximity to Boston, which has been a major economic growth engine. A lot of Massachusetts people retire their also, because of lower costs, especially housing. A common phenomenon: the Lancaster, Pa. area gets a lot of retirees from DC and Philadelphia, while Nevada has a lot of California retirees.
One thing I’ve noticed about Florida is that while I see a lot of new factories opening in other states in the Southeast, especially EV-related plants, Florida seems to be ignored by manufacturers. That dynamic will likely continue.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Some of the major carmakers seem to be buying into the dumb autopilot fraud. There’s a commercial that shows drivers in various 5K lb. pickups removing their hands from their steering wheels to clap in time to the opening riff in Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” Every time it comes on, I think, “Don’t encourage them, FFS!”
Eolirin
@Kay: No where did I even remotely suggest Ohio was going to turn into Mississippi.
We were talking about a trend of cheap labor leading to manufacturing expansion keeping certain places that otherwise would have no economic base going. Some places don’t get that, under those circumstances, and then you’re going to have something like Mississippi. It wasn’t a comment about Ohio at all. I know Ohio has an industrial base and is not wholly bereft of well paying jobs. It doesn’t fall into that category.
The city growth is precisely why I still have hope for the state especially with the regional reinvestment going on. It has to be big enough that it swamps the loss of margin in the rural vote, which will happen if it continues long enough or it accelerates. Until then things won’t get better politically.
Like I haven’t been to Indianapolis in some time, but it definitely wasn’t booming a decade and change ago. It was dying. If that’s turning around that’s great too. We need our cities thriving.
There go two miscreants
@HumboldtBlue: My most sincere condolences. I had a similar experience – my father died 8 years ago from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was unconscious by the time I got to the hospital. He was 94, but it was still difficult to accept.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I recall no one telling him girl’s sports didn’t matter. They told him that trans girls were not going to obliterate the record books in girl’s sports, and he was worrying about hypotheticals that were not borne out by evidence.
Kathleen
@HumboldtBlue: My deepest condolences.
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry.
Anyway
@Geminid:
(S)lower Delaware gets a lot of NJ and NY retirees…
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
They absolutely did. They asked him “why he cares about this” which is their usual ham handed tactic right before they accuse someone of bad faith.
Any normie is going to hear that as “why do you care about girls sports?” Stop fucking diminishing the whole category and issue. He’s permitted to ask if there will be guidelines and who will set them. Also? None of you answered his question, which was “what about boys who have not medically transitioned?”
Answer his question. It’s a good question.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Nominated.
Rebel’s Dad
I was born male, and still identify as cismale. Does that make me a same-sex person?
These fucking jokers, I hate them all. If you’re going to insult me, at least have the motherfucking decency to come up with good fucking insults.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t care for sports. Don’t watch them. Don’t play them. Don’t care at all about them. But I can tell you as a former public school student and public school parent for 30 years if you’re an advocate or an ally you had better care about girls sports, because their parents do.
If Kent the Liberal High School Teacher isn’t allowed to bring it up, who is? Jesus. If you can’t persuade him you can forget about my school board.
cain
@HumboldtBlue:
It’s ok to express your grief. So sorry for your loss. I hope that the pain recedes and it will but grieve it’s how we deal with death.
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: I appreciate the record correction.
I’m not willing to be involved in another Kay related “discussion” coming within a mile of trans related issues, so if this turns into a back and forth I’m out of the thread.
Rebel’s Dad
@HumboldtBlue: Oh, this is terrible news. I’m so sorry.
Brachiator
@Kay:
Nope. Jerk culture is entirely irrelevant to whether Musk succeeds or fails. Most of the 19th robber barons were total assholes. They were also some of the most successful innovators and business people in the history of the world.
I mentioned in a previous thread that sales of Teslas have increased tremendously since Musk lowered the price of some models. And companies are jumping to make his charger the standard in America.
Musk cannot control this. And it may be new types of companies, not legacy auto companies, that finally overtake Musk. Wagon and carriage companies of the 19th century did not all transform into auto manufacturers.
Hype doesn’t matter. Evolution or disruption is typically an element of innovation. But no one has any special handle on what will be the best catalyst for change.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Nelle: Cedar Rapids
FelonyGovt
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t even think it’s representative of trans advocates. I read two and both of them acknowlege that there will have to be guidelines for high school girls sports. I suppose they could shriek that it “doesn’t matter” but they instead (wisely, in my view) have chosen to address the actual question. He’s talking about girls teams in high school, the vast,vast normie sports population, not elite athletes. I suppose it “doesn’t matter” if all you count is breaking records or professional sports or college scholarships but MOST high school,l sports isn’t about any of that and it absolutely matters to the girls who play and their parents.
Old School
@HumboldtBlue: My sympathies.
Yes, after my father died, breaking the news to relatives was the worst. It did help having the support and togetherness of loved ones in the next weeks though.
Kay
@Brachiator:
It’s fine. I’m betting against the Elon Musk Management Model. It’s crap, IMO. We disagree.
No one ever really reinvents good management. There is no “secret sauce” and bad work always catches up to them.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: We’ve had Leafs for 9 years. The controls are easy and intuitive. The acceleration is great. We’d like to get a VW ID4 and prices will start dropping in a year or two.
Eolirin
@Kay: Fuck I just said I’d leave, so this is the last post I’m making here.
No one in that conversation said a goddamn thing about girls sports being unimportant at any point, and the only way to arrive at that is to completely misconstrue what was being said. All of which was backed by data and outcomes and which explained why the reasons that were being brought up for why inclusion was a bad thing or dangerous to girls sport were bullshit. All linked to resources backing this up.
Like of course we care about girl’s sports, that’s why we want trans girls to be able to participate in them. They’re girls. And the reason for some girls to get excluded is bullshit. They’re all the same arguments that were peddled for why black people should be excluded from sports when things were segregated. Guess what, there’s no flood of trans athletes breaking records and stealing all the scholarships! The issue is entirely fucking hypothetical.
We want girls to be able to participate in girls sports. That’s the entire fucking conversation.
In every conversation on this topic you operate as if trans women aren’t actually women and can be cleaved from issues involving women. It’s incompatible with keeping space for those of us that are trans or non binary. It’s identity erasing and a kind of microaggresion.
Brachiator
@Kay:
I don’t have to answer his question. I’m not a coach or parent or school administrator.
But I do acknowledge that the question is valid, as are many similar questions. And is an issue that sports bodies will have to deal with.
cain
@OzarkHillbilly: Exciting! I’m sure Space Karen is also thrilled. :)
Kay
@Eolirin:
But Kent never said some girls should be excluded. You made that up. He asked 1. should there be guidelines and 2. who should make the guidelines.
You’re wrong on the merits, btw. Your belief that asking if there will be guidelines means people want to exclude some girls isn’t what’s happening. They’re developing guidelines, so your decision to die on that hill was just a waste of time. There will be guidelines for girls sports in high schools. I hope people like Kent help make them. But you and the rest on thg9is site can continue to insist “it doesn’t matter”.
You don’t get to tell people what matters. That’s not how public schools work. If any group of girls or parents say it matters, then it matters, and it WILL be addressed. You just won’t be part of it.
Kay
@Eolirin:
Also? A suggestion? Try not to dismiss every question people ask about girls or womens sports as somehow the work of the (sexist phrasing) “Beckies” or “Karens”. That’s a nasty shot at women. Respect them enough to answer the fucking question instead of dismissing them as oh, those gals! Always WHINING. So spoiled!
Like I said- it doesn’t matter. It’s a fair question and it will get answered. It’s just that certain trans advocates and allies won’t be a part of it, because they’re bad advocates who alienate people.
cain
@CaseyL:
I used to do that in my 20s as well – it was a lot of fun. Sorry to hear that gaming assholes have come in and flooded it. I always thought a lot of that went to comicon conventions.
Now that you mention it, yes those conventions were filled with neurodivergent people, and gender fluid type people. It was always such a safe space for everyone even before there was a code of conduct. (or so I think, I’m a guy and it was the 90s, I suspect women have a different opinion)
Kay
@Eolirin:
I didn’t talk to any girls about high school sports and either did any of the people responding to Kent. Not cis girls, not trans girls. You know who has talked to them? Kent. Because he’s a coach and a teacher.
Maybe bring them in next time? The trans girls and the cis girls? What do they think about guidelines? Are they as opposed as you are?
Eunicecycle
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s never easy; you can think you are prepared but you can’t prepare for the reality. Be gentle with yourself.
Soprano2
@HumboldtBlue: Don’t beat yourself up over it, you have no idea how you’ll react to the loss of a loved one until it actually happens. I had to race to Facebook to tell my sister’s friends about her death so they didn’t have to find out on the 6 o’clock news – I never anticipated having to do that! I am so, so sorry for your loss.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@HumboldtBlue: I am so sorry. The pain (as you probably already know) doesn’t ever really go away, but there was (for me) a point at which it began to be outweighed by the sweetness of the memories.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank you, someone who gets it!!!!!!!!! Today I’m listening to Danielle Moody on the “The New Abnormal” podcast yell at “Democrats” about the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, because somehow they’re supposed to be able to do something about it. I find myself wondering if she voted for Hillary in 2016, or did like what those other people did and left it blank for “reasons”.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: There were two guys in that thread–was Kent or the other one the one who said he thought total exclusion from sports was a price that trans people ought to be willing to pay for their big lifestyle-changing choice? Maybe it was the other one.
Anyway, obviously there are going to be guidelines. At the pro level they usually require some degree of medical transition. High-school sports are tricker because these are teenagers. What I see right now is that these cases are part of a massive push to eliminate trans people, not just from sports, but from existence, and while Kent might have been asking in good faith I have trouble believing they all are.
…I think he brought up another nightmare scenario with parents pushing their AFAB girls to pretend to transition to being boys and then change their minds after getting some testosterone treatments so they could win girl’s sports competitions. I know of zero cases of anything like that happening so I guess it’s a challenge we can meet when it starts occurring.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: The sense I got from the article was that most people wanted to stay in California, they just couldn’t find a decent place to live that they could afford.
Soprano2
@Kay: I suspect that a lot of these people live in areas where 95% of the people are like them and mostly agree with them, so they don’t have the experience that all conservative people are not monsters. One commenter here would have had me cut my mother off the minute I thought she supported TFG – at least that’s how I took a comment that was directed at someone else. It’s not that easy to cut your family off because of political differences. If you want to do that fine, but don’t yell at me that if I don’t do it too I’m also the enemy.
ETA – as for the girls sports issue, I wish more people understood that a lot of the resistance is fear that their daughter will see a penis in the locker room or bathroom if transgender girls are allowed in there, or that boys will pretend to be transgender in order to get access to naked girls. I truly think that’s what’s driving a lot of it. One of the pieces we performed in New York had the lines “We are driven by love or by fear; I fear you because I do not know you”. Lots and lots of truth there.
Kay
@Soprano2:
People of good faith who care about girls sports – like Kent- are allowed to ask about guidelines. It’s a good question and as I said- it WILL be addressed. The one and only question will be HOW and WHO DECIDES.
I’d like to hear from some girls on this issue, myself. Girls – both cis and trans- can speak the last time I checked. They’re classmates and teammates. I bet they’d do a good job discussing it. Do they think they need guidelines for the situation where there has been a social transition but no medical transition?
I think I’ve heard enough from adults on girls sports. We’re doing a bad job and as far as I can tell we’ve completely lost focus on the issue, which is THE GIRLS. Not the adults.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: Kent gets shit because he repeats Transphobic and TERF talking points that are currently being used to justify horrific roll-backs of rights for LGBTQ people based on an imaginary threat of athletic domination by Trans Girls/Women. Period. The threat of Trans Athletes is every bit as much bullshit as GOP claims about the threat of Voter Fraud, scare-mongering about Abortion On-Demand.and Joe Rogan’s claims about the danger of the Covid Vaccine. They are irrational, not rooted in science nor supported by evidence. Yet Kent continues to legitimize them on the basis of anecdotal, some-people-are-saying nonsense and pretending to do so out of concern for Women/Girls. It’s just the same old TERF-friendly trolling and JAQ-ing that we are seeing all over the right-wing social media and especially (now with more Nazis) Twitter. Nobody should be defending that crap and people are right to call him out on it. Unlike the GOP, we don’t restrict peoples’ rights based on flimsy hypotheticals rooted in irrational fear. We are better that. And Kent should be too.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@HumboldtBlue: I’m so sorry. And go ahead and loose it over this; it’s easier going on afterwards.
bbleh
@HumboldtBlue: Condolences to you and your family. Everybody grieves differently, so roll with it and it’ll ease.
brantl
@Suzanne: Abortion should be rare because birth control is easy-to-get, plentiful, reliable, and inexpensive. And then it can be reasonably rare. It is because family planning should be deliberate and preemptive. (Teach kids/people how not to get knocked up.)
PJ
@HumboldtBlue:
My condolences. As others have noted, let yourself feel everything you are feeling, and tell others about it if you feel like it, too. There’s no shame in feeling the weight of human life, and its absence.
brantl
@Suzanne: yeah, and they either have a serious medical problem, yet want to have kids, or have a problem getting birth control managed.
brantl
@HumboldtBlue: Truly sorry, bud. If it can make you feel any better, I had a dad that 5 of his six kids didn’t miss, after he died. You miss him, and he obviously was a great person, who any decent person would miss. Again, truly sorry.
StringOnAStick
@HumboldtBlue: So sorry HB, knowing it was coming doesn’t make it any easier. Grieving is difficult work; be kind to yourself.
HumboldtBlue
Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts.