Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

The willow is too close to the house.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

In my day, never was longer.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

… among the most cringeworthy communications in the history of the alphabet!

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The revolution will be supervised.

White supremacy is terrorism.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Monday Morning Open Thread: Gear Up for Another Weird Week

Monday Morning Open Thread: Gear Up for Another Weird Week

by | 245 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Monday Morning Open Thread: Gear Up for Another Weird Week

(Keith Knight via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

245Comments

  2. 2.

    VeniceRiley

    I think we need all hands combating global warming including nuclear. 

    But I’m down with the rest of the Bidenomics agenda.

    As for soccer sports ball… After suffering the USA defeat and the Man City defeat on penalties yesterday, I’m happy to get an undeserving win for England women.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    PROJECT FUNDED BY PRESIDENT BIDEN’S INFRASTRUCTURE LAW

    Tag line should have been “Let’s Go Brandon”.

  5. 5.

    p.a.

    Arlington National Cemetery
    @ArlingtonNatl

    Arlington National Cemetery is seeking comments from the public on the congressionally-mandated removal and relocation of the Confederate Memorial.

    Marianas Trench?

    Also too, the script has been passed out: “Free speech, First Amendment!”  Remember The Daily Show segments with the spliced vids of conservaturds puking the same phrases, same words, across media, in interviews and speeches.

  6. 6.

    gene108

    @VeniceRiley:

    I think we need all hands combating global warming including nuclear.

    Nuclear power generation is a lost cause, despite advances in technology. Too much public resistance to building new nuclear power plants.

  7. 7.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Obama is so unmemorable that wingnuts spends day and night talking about him 6 1/2 years after leaving office.​

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I know, right?

    Can we get some ‘Dark Brandon’ stickers to slap on these things, where Uncle Joe Brandon is pointing and saying “I did that?”  Sort of the inverse of what the wingnuts were putting on gas pumps a year or so ago?

  9. 9.

    gene108

    Fools don’t know the relief that comes from knowing  insurers cannot refuse coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

  11. 11.

    Maxim

    The party of lawlessness, insurrection, selfishness, bigotry, demagoguery, conspiracy theories, and authoritarian persecution doesn’t get to talk to me about health care. Or anything else. But also, the ACA saved my life, so I might be a little bit biased.

  13. 13.

    cmorenc

    @VeniceRiley:

    As for soccer sports ball… After suffering the USA defeat

    The upside of so many of the perennial top national teams in women’s soccer losing relatively early in WWC (particularly the USWNT) is that it reflects the increasing competitive breadth, strength and depth of the women’s game across the world.

    OTOH it’s disgusting that RW-nuts are sneeringly celebrating the defeat of the “woke” US team, particularly focusing vitriol on Megan Rapinoe.

  15. 15.

    narya

    @gene108: Also: when one is between jobs, or has a job that doesn’t provide health insurance, there’s a way to get insurance that isn’t stupidly, prohibitively expensive. Exhibit A is me, this year: I had a five-month gap between accepting a severance agreement and Medicare. It wasn’t cheap, exactly, but it was EASY to sign up, and I could have paid a whole lot less if I weren’t so picky about my docs.

    I’m glad they’re tagging the projects–Obama did the same thing with ARRA, and it kind of crept into your consciousness; I think this will be a bigger deal. Even if the signs end up being shot up or defaced, which you know they will.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @cmorenc:

    Eh, if some MAGA field goal kicker missed a field goal that booted his team out of the playoffs, I might be a tad gleeful.

    ETA: Although it’s a little different when the team is representing your country.

  18. 18.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Here’s an awful thought – over 7 years of my life have involved mentally regulating my emotional reactions to the bloated orange mediocrity’s verbal spew, as well as the actions of his roadrunner the media, legislative bodies and the bench. To date, it is 11% of my life. – as a function of my remaining likely actuarial years, it is roughly 25% of my life since he came down that escalator.

    I hate that for me.

  22. 22.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Google turns up:

    “Vegetarian eggs are produced by hens that are fed rations containing only vegetable foods,” a representative for the American Egg Board confirmed.

    Which raises the unsettling question of what the other hens are being fed. I know farm chickens eat insects, snails, and even mice, but suspect those aren’t the non-vegetable ingredients in battery farm feed.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    Sohrab Ahmari is human garbage. He would have us all living under the rule of the Pope. Not this one, mind you.

    Speaking of the infrastructure bill…. so it is doing fantastic good in my neighborhood, where the streets are torn up (again) and lead pipes replaced. (I have been posing for selfies on the glorious heavy equipment they routinely park in front of my house. GOD I LOVE A GOOD EXCAVATOR.) I will note that the work included replacement of the domestic supply line for free if the homeowner so chose, which we did, as did most of our neighbors. We even asked the contractor if this was funded by the infrastructure bill, and they said that they didn’t know, but that they think so.

  27. 27.

    Jack Canuck

    When I first saw a story about the signs giving Biden credit for the projects, my first thought was that they should add something else to them as well – namely, what the local congressperson and senator voted for the project in question. Then you’d get credit where it’s due but also make it harder for those who voted ‘no’ to hide their lack of concern for their voters.

  29. 29.

    narya

    @Jack Canuck: Ooooooh, I like this idea . .

    ETA but Brandon, even Dark Brandon, wouldn’t do it, is my guess. OTOH, that’s surely a graffiti option for Brandon fans nearby . . .

  34. 34.

    Splitting Image

    @Baud:

    I just learned that there is a thing called “vegan leather.”

    Formerly known as polyvinyl chloride or polyurethane. Granted we live in a world where the orange thing was able to rebrand himself as a God-fearing Christian, but this is taking “rebranding” too far.

  35. 35.

    satby

    @Jack Canuck: Exactly! Because the voters never check who voted for it against their pet projects / causes.

    In my photo files I saved screenshots from c-span of the votes in various bills (like anti-gouging, veteran benifits, etc) so that when I hear the MAGAs at the market complain about stuff like high prices I can show them how their R rep voted against fixing it. Because I’m salty like that.

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I hate that for you too, and also for me and every one of us. I wish there were a way to expunge that corrupt, rapey, traitorous creep from our history, but no such luck.

    However, I think the White House remains free of his hideous visage for now since there’s as yet no official portrait to hang there. Even if a MAGA cultist hack like McNaughton paints a hagiographic lie in oil, the Bidens can hardly be expected to preside over an installation ceremony.

    That should remain the case in perpetuity. God help us, there will probably be a Repub POTUS again someday, but hopefully that person will also want to keep the White House free of images recalling the orange fart cloud and Third Lady. They’re an embarrassment for all of us.

  41. 41.

    satby

    @Baud: according to John, I’m a crabby old lady 😝

    I don’t waylay random strangers to argue with them, these are generally my immediate neighbor vendors and only after listening to the b.s. for a while. I do it mostly to just shut them up. I like quiet.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: However, I think the White House remains free of his hideous visage for now since there’s as yet no official portrait to hang there.

    It occurs to me that you don’t get much more official than a mug shot. If he goes to prison for the J6 charges, it would be a very appropriate summary of his administration, and possibly a reminder and warning to successors.

  51. 51.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Trump was a populist earthquake (even if he often too failed to govern as a populist).

    How is this an achievement?

  53. 53.

    Hoodie

    @Suzanne: It’s striking how much deferred maintenance there has been in this country.  Maybe it’s a reflection of the throw away nature of our consumer society that once we build something, it’s not made to last and, thus, we soon forget about taking care of it.  One of things I wonder about is all of these 5+1 apartment complexes being built in our city and elsewhere.  My son works for a firm that has some investments in this type of real estate and tells me that the developers and financiers assume a 25-year lifespan for these projects, which I assume means they will be absolute shit in 25 years.  He actually lives in one in Atlanta, where you can see the lack of quality and flimsy materials first hand.  I guess building apartments that way is not unreasonable in one sense, i.e., by the end of 25 years, changes in technology, population and economics will render these obsolete, with the assumption being that they’ll be replaced by something else.  However, then I think of all the Hausmann era apartment buildings in Paris that are still in use.   Granted, Paris has had it’s upheavals, but it will always be Paris.

  54. 54.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ken:

    It is standard practice to grind up the meat of food animals that cannot be sold to humans, and sell that as part of farm animal feed.  It is very healthy and nutritious.  Even animals like cows that you think of as herbivores like meat, they just can’t catch it or tear it up themselves.

  55. 55.

    satby

    @delphinium: seriously, if you know any R voters who constantly argue that Dems are anti-veteran (or whatever) try it yourself. Fairly normal ones just shut up. Cult members claim it’s photoshopped. Easy way to sort out potentially recoverable from hopelessly lost souls.

  57. 57.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Our public works/environmental services crews do an “equipment rodeo” every year where they get to demonstrate their skill with that equipment. It can be an amazing thing to watch if the operator is skilled.

  59. 59.

    Soprano2

    @Splitting Image: It’s made mostly from petroleum products, so it’s not better for the environment, plus it’s crummy, tears up easily, and is hot to wear compared to leather. I understand the objection to leather, but I also think that if those animals are going to be slaughtered we should use every part we can rather than discarding it. They aren’t saving any animals by refusing to wear leather. It’s not the same as fur, where the animals were grown only for their fur.

  60. 60.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: Speaking of the Third Lady, how come there are no articles in the press lamenting how TFG’s family doesn’t appear to be standing with him; none of them have been with him for any of the court appearances. You know if it were a Democrat it would be commented on by a lot of them.

  62. 62.

    Scout211

    New York Magazine Intelligencer  has a nice article up this morning giving credit to Speaker Emerita Pelosi for essentially saving our democracy. The Pelosi Factor: Trump’s longtime antagonist played an essential role in his historic indictment.

    Read the whole thing.  She deserves all the credit that this article gives her, and more.

    A few snippets:

    Ultimately, however, you cannot tell the story of Trump’s historic indictment without Nancy Pelosi. It was the then-Speaker of the House who insisted that there be a congressional inquiry following January 6. And it was the work of the select committee she fashioned that finally appears to havespurred a reluctant Justice Department to action, setting in motion a more intense phase of criminal scrutiny focused on Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The resulting indictment closely tracks the select committee’s work and findings, presenting a factual narrative that traces — almost identically — the evidence presented by the committee of a sophisticated, multipronged effort by Trump to remain in power that culminated in the mayhem at the U.S. Capitol.

    “I knew on January 6 that he had committed a crime,” Pelosi told me late Friday afternoon, squeezing me in for a roughly 30-minute interview at the tail end of a remarkable week in Washington.
    . . .
    In what turned out to have been a historic miscalculation, Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell blocked the initiative in the Senate. “He went around to members and said, ‘Do me a personal favor and do not vote for this,’” Pelosi told me. “Even though he knew that night — and said — that the Republican president was responsible, they didn’t even want to have an investigation.”

    Pelosi has earned a reputation as one of the most tactically savvy leaders in the history of the Congress, and she chuckled as she recalled McConnell’s maneuvering. “People said to Mitch, ‘You think Nancy is going to let this go?’ What could he have been thinking?”
    . . .
    “The indictments against the president are exquisite,” Pelosi added, referring to both the latest set of charges and the earlier federal indictment over Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his subsequent efforts to obstruct investigators. “They’re beautiful and intricate, and they probably have a better chance of conviction than anything that I would come up with.”

  63. 63.

    Trivia Man

    Re: Trump mug shot. The argument was made – it’s unseemly to degrade him like that. Since the purpose is to have a standard format for positive identification it is unnecessary- he is the most recognizable face in earth. BUT…. Since his team IMMEDIATELY used a fake mug shot as a fund raiser then an official shot is in order. Really hope DA Fani is ready to go on that front.

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    @Bupalos: Good point about confinement since free-range hens scratch around and eat absolutely anything they can. People who are vegetarian for ethical reasons related to the treatment of animals should maybe stick with free range eggs and consider the karmic debt for random snails the hen’s problem.

  66. 66.

    BC in Illinois

    Arlington National Cemetery is seeking comments from the public on the congressionally-mandated removal and relocation of the Confederate Memorial.

    There is a good-sized river conveniently located nearby.

  68. 68.

    Anyway

    @Bupalos:

    yeah, i never understood chicken raised on “vegetarian diet”  —  worms and bugs are part of their diet. I am against cattle fed ground up animal parts as part of their diet (still haunted by BSE) —  my image of cows is in a meadow chewing on grass.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: Snails, insects, the occasional mouse… I saw a couple chickens killing a snake once. As usual, it made me wonder how it took us so long to recognize that dinosaurs are still among us.

  72. 72.

    cmorenc

    @Anyway: it’s not just chickens whose natural diet choices (snails etc) most human consumers would prefer not to think about.  Those who like shrimp should avoid dwelling on thinking of them as essentially a crustacean form of cockroach, scavaging whatever they can opportunistically find on the sea bottom or floating about.

  73. 73.

    Chris

    @Maxim:

    The ACA didn’t save my life, but I can’t describe the relief I had from moving from Florida to Maryland (a state that actually took the Medicaid expansion) and finally knew I’d be insured even when I was unemployed, after a year of dealing with new various new medical problems.  Doubly so since at one point in that year I had a co-worker actually die from something that should have been eminently treatable, except he didn’t have health insurance.

    (The fact that I would have had the Medicaid expansion in Florida if not for the Supreme Court’s meddling is also another reason, if I ever needed one, why I also have no patience for the “talking about Supreme Court justices is blackmail!” school of thought).

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @satby: My understanding is that egg production isn’t really commercially viable unless you sell the chickens for meat when they stop laying, so the two things aren’t really separated regardless.

  76. 76.

    Suzanne

    @Hoodie:

    My son works for a firm that has some investments in this type of real estate and tells me that the developers and financiers assume a 25-year lifespan for these projects, which I assume means they will be absolute shit in 25 years.  He actually lives in one in Atlanta, where you can see the lack of quality and flimsy materials first hand.  I guess building apartments that way is not unreasonable in one sense, i.e., by the end of 25 years, changes in technology, population and economics will render these obsolete, with the assumption being that they’ll be replaced by something else. 

    Yeah, when we plan and design buildings, we talk about them in roughly 30-year increments. It’s because of the lifespan of materials, but also because of the changing fabric of the area and determining the “highest and best use”. That highest and best use of a site will almost certainly change over time, so designing and building something to last for 200 years (not that we can…. everything will take e a lot of maintenance to last that long) doesn’t make sense, if you think about what is more likely…. which is tearing down a structure to build something more modern and probably larger on its site.

    Buildings are often really difficult to reuse effectively. I have worked in many markets, but now I specialize in healthcare. As healthcare has gotten more complex and sophisticated, the buildings have changed a lot. One of the biggest problems we run into in healthcare is just the floor-to-floor height in older buildings is often such that we can’t even use them for modern imaging modalities or operating rooms. Like, you can’t just take an existing building and put more space in between every floor. Every kind of building has these limiting factors, and they’re often really significant.

  77. 77.

    artem1s

    @Ken: ​
     

    Which raises the unsettling question of what the other hens are being fed.

    Bone meal for calcium most likely? Omnivores in the wild will eat bones for calcium and other minerals. If chickens are free range they will eat any number of things including dead animals. I’m not sure I’d want to be eating eggs from cage raised chickens to preserve the illusion I’m eating a ‘vegetable’ egg. What crock of s**t.

  78. 78.

    RandomMonster

    @Baud: Fake meat is fairly common these days  I just didn’t realize it had extended to upholstery.

    Well, the vegan leather is just a by-product of butchering the fake meat.

  80. 80.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    I just learned that there is a thing called “vegan leather.”

    Marketing term for fake leather belts and such, like if fake fur got branded “vegan fur”.

  81. 81.

    Scout211

    I second all the jackals stories of chickens as omnivores. Our chickens eat anything they see on the ground. We add food scraps to their feed at night: fruits, vegetables and even cut-up meat.

    I once saw a chicken try to steal a mouse that our cat had captured. That was amusing. And our snake problem is vastly improved now that we have chickens.  I have no idea if they actually eat them but they do like to try and catch them.

  82. 82.

    narya

    The Arlington website has a pretty good history of the monument (at first glance–I am NOT an historian), and I’d like to see something like that history included in a replacement monument. The Lost Cause mythology is so damaging, to this day, and that would be a perfect location for a refutation of it. I absolutely do not want to glorify the traitors, and I also do not want to gloss over, or try to erase, what they did. Using the materials of that monument to tell that history would be fitting.

  83. 83.

    p.a.

    @Trivia Man: Re: Trump mug shot. The argument was made – it’s unseemly to degrade him like that. Since the purpose is to have a standard format for positive identification it is unnecessary- he is the most recognizable face in earth. BUT…. Since his team IMMEDIATELY used a fake mug shot as a fund raiser then an official shot is in order. Really hope DA Fani is ready to go on that front.

     

     

    Especially sweet if they make him remove makeup and the combover.

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sdhays: Well… birds in general.

    There’s a fossil from China called Yutyrannus that has associated feather traces, and the animal basically looked like a Tyrannosaurus completely covered in fluffy feathers.

  88. 88.

    glory b

    I happened across an episode of a pre ACA hospital show, I don’t watch enough television to remember the name of it, but it had a young George Clooney as a doctor.

    The amount of time taken up with medical professionals talking about how patients were to pay for their care, and what could be accomplished with the resources at hand was surprising.

    How soon we forget (even me).

  92. 92.

    glory b

    @Betty Cracker: I read an old article detailing a protest at a prison by inmates who were upset about being fed shrimp and lobster so often. They considered an abomination to force them to eat the sea’s garbage processors. Those sympathetic to them thought it pretty much a human rights violation.

  93. 93.

    OlFroth

    While I heartily endorse melting down the Confederate monument at Arlington into cannonballs, I wouldn’t fire a ball out of a 3″ ordinance rifle.  A 12 pounder Napoleon would be better for a cannonball.

  95. 95.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: most vegetarians willingly eat eggs, milk, and cheese and often fish. They draw their line at killing warm blooded animals (very generally). Vegans only eat products from vegetation. Strict vegans also avoid leather and byproducts of animal slaughter. People mix the two up, but eating vegetarian is almost mainstream compared to when I was one as a rebellious teen in the ’70s. Purely strict vegan can still be hard to pull off.

  96. 96.

    Mike in NC

    Republicans also tried to prevent President Obama from getting any credit for assorted infrastructure projects by blocking his name. They did that in our little town when a new fire station was built.

    They’re consistent in their pettiness.

  97. 97.

    Salty Sam .

    @Soprano2:   Our public works/environmental services crews do an “equipment rodeo” every year where they get to demonstrate their skill with that equipment. It can be an amazing thing to watch if the operator is skilled.

    Here in Austin, over a decade ago, the city trash services teamed up with a choreographer and created “trash truck ballet” (not the official name, but that’s what *I* remember it by). It was an amazing sight, big trash pickup trucks lumbering around doing pirouettes and waving their can grapplers in unison.

  98. 98.

    Chris T.

    @p.a.:

    Especially sweet if they make him remove makeup and the combover.

    It’s not exactly a comb-over, it’s more of a “side-over”. He’s had the bald spot relocated so that people who look for it on the top of his head can’t find it.

    When you see his hair weirdly plastered over his ear, just realize that that’s where the bald spot is.

  100. 100.

    Salty Sam .

    @Soprano2: It’s made mostly from petroleum products, so it’s not better for the environment,

    I’ve seen all the mentions of pleather, Naugahyde, PVC, etc, but have not seen anyone mention “mushroom leather”.  It is a real thing, developed in the past decade.  Look up any picture of Paul Stamets, the famous mycologist, and he’s usually wearing his fedora made from mushroom leather.

  102. 102.

    artem1s

    @narya: ​
     

    Using the materials of that monument to tell that history would be fitting.

    Absolutely. The real truth of Lee as a traitor and terrible person needs to be more prominently and correctly told. The land was seized and repurposed as a National Cemetery because he was a traitor three times over. Traitor to his actual country the USA; his secessionists country, the Confederacy; and his claimed (not a country) state of Virginia. If believed the bullshit about being loyal to Virginia he would have refused to be part of the Confederacy in the first place. They betrayed the lie of independent states rights when they wrote their constitution which forbade states regulation of slavery in any way. If Lee had publicly denounced the South and chose to sit out the war, he very well could have ended any hope of the secessionist states forming an army. He could have been an actual hero to his ‘country’ of Virginia. Instead he chose perpetuating slavery.

  105. 105.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: (Insert gif of cow chasing and eating chicks here.)

    Animals eat all kinds of stuff that doesn’t fit in the herbivore / carnivore / omnivore tidy boxes.  Nature is complicated!

    😀

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    jonas

    @artem1s: Instead he chose perpetuating slavery.

    Yep. He was loyal to Virginia because that’s where his land and slaves were.

  108. 108.

    cmorenc

    @Suzanne: In addition to calculations of cost vs lifespan of materials, another consideration is depreciation for tax and accounting purposes – fully “depreciated” buildings may have less value from the perspective of bean-counters than they do from a macro perspective of civic utility to make more pedestrian types buildings built to last (pedestrian in the sense of class of intended market, not walkability, although it is true that one of the problems of the bean-counter approach is that too often factors like “walkability” of office parks and middle-income apartment buildings wasn’t included as important).

  109. 109.

    Salty Sam .

    @satby:    Thanks!  I didn’t realize polyurethane was used so much for that.  It makes sense, from a manufacturing and usage perspective, but kinda destroys the whole eco-friendly aspect.  Luckily I have no qualms about using the real thing-  I probably went through several whole cows at summer camp craft shop!

  110. 110.

    laura

    @Salty Sam .: I ❤ Sanitation Workers! Always a top 10 most dangerous job in America, the work just tears up bodies- often due to vibration, also crumbling road beds and potholes, they are highly skilled in ways most of us would never know, and collection drivers are a constant and reassuring presence in our neighborhoods. Give them their flowers! https://youtu.be/wfpnUTY22dg

  113. 113.

    jonas

    @glory b:  I read an old article detailing a protest at a prison by inmates who were upset about being fed shrimp and lobster so often.

    There were also reports (possibly apocryphal?) about servants and apprentices in pre-revolutionary New England striking to protest being fed lobster more than 3 days a week or something.

  114. 114.

    Salty Sam .

    @laura: I ❤ Sanitation Workers

    Me too.  Whenever I hear someone mouth those platitudes of “Thanks for your service!” to some member of the military, I always want to ask that person  “do you ever thank the Sanitation Workers the same way?”   Their service is AT LEAST as important and necessary, if not way more!

  115. 115.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: Since the beginning of this year, our diet is about 85% vegetarian, including dairy and eggs. It was our “lifestyle hack” to leave behind some of our most terrible dietary habits. But I hope I never have to give up dairy — not sure life would be worth living without cheese!

  116. 116.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Chris: …I can’t describe the relief I had from moving from Florida to Maryland (a state that actually took the Medicaid expansion) and finally knew I’d be insured even when I was unemployed, after a year of dealing with new various new medical problems. Doubly so since at one point in that year I had a co-worker actually die from something that should have been eminently treatable, except he didn’t have health insurance.

    I was living and working in MD nearly a dozen years ago when I was laid off and lost my health insurance, 15 months short of my putative retirement date (when I would’ve been able to ride COBRA into Medicare). Fortunately MD had a health insurance plan at the time for people like me who were uninsurable due to preexisting conditions. Junk for the most part, and not cheap, but for someone with the means to cover the premiums it served to protect the funds I’d carefully saved for retirement against the chance of a multimillion-dollar illness. IOW, insurance in the purest sense of the word. Yay for bluish states!

  117. 117.

    Salty Sam .

    @jonas:   There were also reports (possibly apocryphal?) about servants and apprentices in pre-revolutionary New England striking to protest being fed lobster more than 3 days a week or something.

    Lobster as “fine dining” is a relatively recent trend.  For most of its history lobster was considered a low class food, only fit for those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder.

  118. 118.

    Mike in NC

    @p.a.:  While Obama was in office, MSNBC regularly had a parade of GOP congressmen and senators who all had memorized the FOX News bullshit line that went, “Our allies no longer respect us and our enemies are no longer afraid of us”. Heard that one about a hundred times.

  119. 119.

    M31

    I used to have chickens as a teenager and if you broke an egg they would gobble it up so fast it was amazing. Shell and all — got to keep up your calcium supply to make more eggs.

    speaking of feathered T-Rex, if you’ve ever seen a casowary, they’re like a 5 foot tall chicken/velociraptor mix, they kill people quite happily with their huge claws

  120. 120.

    Betty Cracker

    @artem1s: It really was. I read an article some years ago about the officer who was in charge of designating burial sites on the seized property. If I remember it right, he’d lost at least one of his sons in the war and was understandably bitter and pissed off about it. IIRC, they didn’t bury the dead right next to the house at first, but as more died, they made a point of burying the dead all around the house so it could never be inhabited again.

  121. 121.

    M31

    @Soprano2: “equipment rodeo”

    hahaha I’ve seen guys on worksites start showing off, betting a case of beer they can use an excavator to move a carton of eggs from the ground to the top of a building without breaking any

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Sohrab Ahrmari writes for the American Conservative, which if memory serves was founded in part by Pat Buchanan as a paleo-con alternative to the Weekly Standard. and again IIRC he’s a hard core Ratzinger Catholic. But that tweet was like flypaper for the horseshoe left

    ETA: Had to double check with google, but apparently Pat Buchanan is still with us

  123. 123.

    Jackie

    @Jack Canuck: I approve that message! Out those who voted against that project, and credit those who support it. “Normies” often don’t have a clue.

  124. 124.

    TooTallTom

    @narya: ​
      I agree. In my opinion, Confederate monuments DO have places where they belong: Battlefields, graveyards, and museums. These places have an opportunity to provide a larger perspective of the Civil War, and not just glorification of the Confederacy.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    The University of Austin, founded by a group including Bari Weiss in reaction to progressive campus culture and promising freer speech, has drawn a line at the right-wing writer Richard Hanania, after HuffPost revealed that he’d written in favor of eugenics and racism under a pseudonym.
    “Richard Hanania has no affiliation with UATX. He was invited once as a speaker. Like many other institutions, we were completely unaware of his pseudonymous, racist writings. Had we known, we would not have invited him,” a spokesman, Hillel Ofek, told Semafor in an email.

    All of his writing is racist and misogynist- the anti woke ninnies either never read anything he wrote or didn’t care. I suspect “didn’t read”. They’re both lazy and stupid.
    I wonder how it feels for a parent to send a daughter, black kid or Latino kid to the University of Texas where the racist misogynist is honored as a “visiting scholar”. Hanania advocates gutting the 1964 Civil Rights Act – removing civil rights protections for minorities and women. Why is that view being promoted in the NYTimes and the Washington Post? Is this mainstream now? Why are they laundering and mainstreaming the far Right?

  126. 126.

    Fleeting Expletive

    @Salty Sam

     

    @Salty Sam .: As a 7th grader livimg in Abilene in the early ’60s, my dad roused all us kids at daybreak on a Saturday to go downtown and watch the choreographed resurfacing of North First Street and South First Street. THere were crushers and rollers and sprayers, followed by more rollers and tar-layers, etc., ending up with several miles of refinished main streets, accomplished in one day.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

  127. 127.

    Ken

    @jonas: Then there are Level 5 vegans, who don’t eat anything that casts a shadow…

    I am a dark matter vegan, and don’t eat any ordinary bosonic matter.

    Unfortunately dark matter is 85% of the universe, which explains why I am so fat.

  128. 128.

    TooTallTom

    @artem1s:

    I grew up in Virginia, 1/2 hour from Appomattox.  In school, we were taught how Lee was a hero, because he would not fight against his native Virginia.  Such horrible one-sided indoctrination.  By the way, my first (Virginia) girlfriend had a middle name of “Lee.”  Her family had no connection to the Lee family, and she was not named for a relative.  You can fill in the blanks.

  129. 129.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Scout211:

    In what turned out to have been a historic miscalculation, Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell blocked the initiative in the Senate. “He went around to members and said, ‘Do me a personal favor and do not vote for this,’” Pelosi told me. “Even though he knew that night — and said — that the Republican president was responsible, they didn’t even want to have an investigation.”

    I forget what never-trumper I heard last week lamenting we didn’t have something more like the “9/11 Commission” for Jan 6, that McConnell, and then His Kevin, didn’t cooperate. My memory’s not what it used to be, but I don’t hold the 9/11 commission in particularly high regard. I specifically remember some phony high dudgeon directed at Richard Clarke by alleged moderate Republican Jim Thompson and I forget which other member, but I remember Clarke responding to his opening remarks with a perfectly timed pause and a deadpan, “Hi John”

  130. 130.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Like many other institutions, we were completely unaware of his pseudonymous, racist writings.

     
    She has a point. Mainstream institutions give them cover.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    Here’s clownish fake Leftist Freddie DeBoer discussing women with the racist misogynist:

    Jeet Heer@HeerJeet

    Freddie deBoer has requested that I note that in this podcast he argued, forcefully, that there is no innate sex difference in intelligence. That’s true. I’ll leave it others to decide if it’s salient.
     

    This is the anti woke ninnies- bitter middle aged men discussing on their stupid fucking self indulgent podcasts whether or not women are intelligent and should have civil and political rights.

    It would never occur to either of these people to actually give a women a platform to speak to whether women are intelligent and should have civil rights. Men will discuss and evaluate women.

    Why do women on the Left put up with this? Jesus Christ. Stand up for yourselves.

  133. 133.

    Suzanne

    @Kay:

    I suspect “didn’t read”. They’re both lazy and stupid. 

    Agreed.

    I find their pearl-clutching hilarious. I have read some of Hanania’s Substack, because I try to keep tabs on some of them, and OMG the racism is not concealed.

  134. 134.

    Ken

    @cmorenc: one of the problems of the bean-counter approach is that too often factors like “walkability” […] wasn’t included as important

    Though it’s not the sense you meant it, when I worked in downtown Chicago I noticed small plaques in the pavement outside several buildings, basically saying “This is the property line but we haven’t built right up to it, so you pedestrians can — for now — walk on our land.”

    Which further reminds me of an article about how parts of London have become much less walkable, because companies — largely overseas investment firms — have become pretty aggressive in enforcing their property rights.  Might have been this one.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I’m glad my kid isn’t at a public university where “visiting scholars” promote misogny and racism and advocate for the withdrawal of civil rights to women and minorities. I’d be pretty fucking pissed if I was paying for this junk “scholarship”. The anti woke ninnies think racist and sexism is “original” and ” brilliant” because they’re nepotism hire mediocrities who are easily impressed.

    He writes at the level of a you tube commenter. How stupid are these people?

  136. 136.

    Jackie

    @p.a.: Then two mug shots would be needed. TIFG ala natural would be unrecognized. If he kept his mouth shut (HA!) he could walk into a McDonald’s w/o his Secret Service detail.

  137. 137.

    Juju

    @Suzanne: As for the integralist part, I say, and I don’t use this word often because I’m a former teacher, fuck the ever loving off and go fuck yourself with a corkscrew two times you stupid fucking fucker.

  138. 138.

    trollhattan

    @Anyway: “Threatening to visit” implies it’s their initiative. Maybe supply a list of nearby vegan restaurants/groceries in advance–it’s a resource AND a hint.

    It’s like, if I had to accommodate a halal or kosher diet for multiple days there’s no chance I’d pull it off. “Here’s a big plate of my famous smoked baby back ribs!”

  139. 139.

    Ken

    @Jackie: TIFG ala natural would be unrecognized. If he kept his mouth shut (HA!) he could walk into a McDonald’s w/o his Secret Service detail.

    He’d shout “Free food for everyone,” bask in the cheers, and walk out without making arrangements to pay.

  140. 140.

    Geoduck

    Whatever Mr. Ahmari’s other failings, when a commentator smacked him on the nose about Obamacare, he admitted not mentioning it was a mistake.

    And I’m glad to hear Keith Knight’s book is selling well, after his attempt at a TV series only lasted a couple of seasons.

  141. 141.

    cmorenc

    @Suzanne:

    Sohrab Ahmari is human garbage. He would have us all living under the rule of the Pope. Not this one, mind you.

    If he confined himself to writing self-help books advising folks whose concept of “freedom” is living an uptight, upright life based on rigid ultra-conservative Catholic-flavored moral principles, well…fine, go knock yourself out giving helpful advice to those sorts of folk.

    But no…he wants to impose his uptight Pope Benadict-flavored form of “freedom” on everyone.  For our own good, “freedom” means adherence to his rigid concepts of God’s will for behavior and lifestyle.

  142. 142.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I don’t really understand this (though ” Judge CANNON comes out swinging” can’t be good) …

    Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney 34m
    Judge CANNON comes out swinging at special counsel this morning, striking two of prosecutors’ sealed filings and demanding an explanation of “the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate” the docs case

    but Joyce Vance does

    Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance 26m

    Judge Cannon responds to the govt’s request for a hearing on Nauta’s lawyer’s conflicts & discloses the existence of a grand jury investigation in another district while denying gov’t’s motion to seal. The govt can appeal. This may tee up the issue of her fitness on this case.

    Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance24m
    Looking like a good week to ask the 11th Circuit to replace the judge

  143. 143.

    smith

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I forget what never-trumper I heard last week lamenting we didn’t have something more like the “9/11 Commission” for Jan 6, that McConnell, and then His Kevin, didn’t cooperate.

    I remember that the Bush administration fought tooth and claw against even having a 9/11 commission, and in the end Bush and Cheney only agreed to testify in private, together, and not under oath.

  144. 144.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    I’m glad you’re here. I’m more surprised at the casual acceptance and promotion of the misogyny- things are worse than we thought.

    Can I just say that I am sick to DEATH of men discussing women and debating our right to live as autonomous adults?

    fuck these people. Who told them other people are a matter to be “debated”?

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    The University of Austin is not a public university, and it’s not the same as the University of Texas at Austin.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    They’re coming for the Civil Rights act and the titles: 7, 9

    And the antiwoke ninnies once again are helping them do it.

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    @artem1s: The Confederacy would have had no trouble forming an army had Lee chosen to sit the war out. His prestige arose in the second year of the war.

    At first, many Southerners looked at Albert Sydney Johnston, killed at Shiloh April, 1862, as their most promising general. P.G.T. Beauregard and Joe Johnston were also early “stars.”

  153. 153.

    Kay

    In his non apology he says he is on his way to tenured professor

    But then I actually read it, unlike those correcting me

  154. 154.

    Betty Cracker

    According to the HuffPo article, Hanania is “a visiting scholar at the University of Texas” and has published in the NYT and WaPo. His website claims he is “a Research Fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.”

    Kay is 100% correct; this asshole has been mainstreamed by the elite. Maybe his unvarnished racist, misogynist views will make him too toxic to hire, but his more recent output looks like that same bullshit on stilts.

  155. 155.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Kay: Maybe you missed these amazing insights from Candace Owens?

    We’re — I mean, we are in a matriarchy. And this is why they accuse me of being an internalized misogynist because I’m able to think through and acknowledge the flaws of what happens in society when women get power.

    And if you wanna know what happens, look around you. Women fall for emotional arguments the entire time. They show us a commercial, you know, show — it’s so sad, and before they get to the rational aspects of it, they’re already invested emotionally. And I think that virtually every societal ill that we are facing today is because of women.

    Back to Pandora and Eve.

  156. 156.

    Kay

    Here’s the junk work the ninnies believe is “scholarship”:

    Around 2008, I had few friends or romantic successes and no real career prospects. Naturally, this led me to look around, and come to the only logical conclusion, which was that I was naturally superior to everyone else and women in particular shouldn’t have any rights. Strangely enough, now that I have a fulfilling personal life and objective career success, such ideas don’t appeal to me anymore.

    Got that ladies? You won’t have any legal protections or actual civil rights, but don’t worry! As long as Right wing men have “romantic success” they are willing to extend you some generosity.

    The self centeredness just kills me. They actually believe they are the center of the universe. Who raises these men? They’re bringing up selfish monsters.

  157. 157.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @RandomMonster: To be fair, a 12 foot high/40 foot long chicken would also be terrifying.

    IIRC there was a Dobie Gillis episode where his science-fair project was growing giant chickens in the basement & Mr Gillis blasted one with a shotgun when it tried to shove its way through the upstairs door.

  158. 158.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    In Mastodon, someone linked to a WaPo poll that said 57% disapprove of Biden kn climate change.  I’m sure that’s a mix of people thinking he’s doing too much and doing too little.  Reminds me of how people disapproved of Obamacare until the GOP tried to repeal it.

    Long story short, there are a lot of people who are not fascists who nonetheless help them out.

  159. 159.

    AliceBlue

    Here’s an interesting fact about Arlington that I wasn’t aware of until recently.  An 1882 Supreme Court case declared that the property had been taken from the Lees without proper compensation and awarded it back to the Lee family.  George Washington Custis Lee then sold the house and the 1100 acre estate to the federal government for $150,000.00.

  160. 160.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It’s absolutely mindboggling. Misogyny seems to be a gateway drug to racism, fascism and mass violence for at least some of these entitled pricks, and they’ve created subcultures where they reinforce each other’s sense of entitlement. I don’t know what we do about it, but it’s a huge problem.

  162. 162.

    Suzanne

    So Hanania has a lengthy piece at his Substack (I won’t link, you can find it yourself) admitting everything in the HuffPo piece is true. He tries to explain why he apparently no longer believes all the terrible stuff he wrote, which boils down to wanting to be contrarian in order to be seen as smart. But here’s a bit that stands out:

    Around 2008, I had few friends or romantic successes and no real career prospects. Naturally, this led me to look around, and come to the only logical conclusion, which was that I was naturally superior to everyone else and women in particular shouldn’t have any rights.

    As I keep saying….

  163. 163.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay: ​
      Your block quote referencing Bari Weiss’s University of Austin and then your reference to UT created some ambiguity there.

  165. 165.

    smith

    @Baud: there are a lot of people who are not fascists who nonetheless help them out.

    I think when it comes to misogyny and the public intellectuals who give cover to creeps like Hanania, they are in fact misogynists. There are a lot of nominally liberal or progressive men who feel deeply threatened by women’s power, and feel a need to curtail it. This was made abundantly clear in 2016.

  166. 166.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s absolutely mindboggling. Misogyny seems to be a gateway drug to racism, fascism and mass violence for at least some of these entitled pricks, and they’ve created subcultures where they reinforce each other’s sense of entitlement. I don’t know what we do about it, but it’s a huge problem. 

    I genuinely think misogyny is the very seed of the problems we are dealing with, because it is really part of the politics of the home, and that is where these terrible dudes are acculturated first. That is not to say that racism, homophobia, ableism, anti-Semitism, etc. are not equally toxic and harmful. Just that one of the very first things these terrible men come to believe is that women exist for their service and comfort. And they are taught that beginning the day they are born.

  168. 168.

    VFX Lurker

     

    @Ken:

    Which raises the unsettling question of what the other hens are being fed. I know farm chickens eat insects, snails, and even mice, but suspect those aren’t the non-vegetable ingredients in battery farm feed.

    Poultry feed can contain processed chicken feathers. Alternatives to putting chicken feathers in animal feed are incineration, landfills or (after processing) fertilizer.

    The problem of chicken feather waste was an argument for breeding a featherless chicken.

  170. 170.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Betty Cracker: I think patriarchy runs so deep in culture and society that at most we only notice the symptoms. Misogyny and sexism are the tip of a massive iceberg.

  171. 171.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Around 2008, I had few friends or romantic successes and no real career prospects. Naturally, this led me to look around, and come to the only logical conclusion, which was that I was naturally superior to everyone else and women in particular shouldn’t have any rights.

    I’m not sure that this would even work as snark. It’s just that repugnant.

    I tried to read through this guy’s defense. It was tiresome and came across as inauthentic.

  172. 172.

    artem1s

    @AliceBlue: ​ Excellent – let’s include that bit of history too then…”In April 1877, Lee (son not R.E.Lee) filed suit in Alexandria County circuit court to eject the U.S. government from Arlington. His suit named, among others, Frederick Kaufman (a civilian in the United States Department of War who oversaw Arlington National Cemetery) and R.P. Strong (a U.S. Army officer who supervised the portion of Arlington which had become an Army post). Almost a thousand others were named in the suit, all of them former African American slaves who had been allowed to form a settlement known as Freedmen’s Village on part of the estate“I’m betting they were especially offended by the Freedom camp. Mary Custis was allowed to return to the house after the war – it may not have been part of the original seizure. But she didn’t stay but a few days. I imagine she was offended by not being able to order the freed slaves off ‘her’ land. The Lees all thought they were untouchable because they were Virginia royalty – Mary Custis was the granddaughter of Washington’s step son. RE Lee thought he could FO and destroy the country and there would be no consequences because of his wife’s family. Sounds a lot like current originalists SCOTUS members and the J6 conspirators.My god the Lees were all horrible. Let the universe know, I say.​

  173. 173.

    trollhattan

    @Brachiator: Seems cut from the same cloth as “landowners only should be able to vote” and “eighteen year olds need to pass a civics test to vote” and “we should rethink women’s suffrage.”

  174. 174.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: Simone de Beauvoir was absolutely, 110%, fiery right about how men hate women and then are full of rage that they still desire them.

    We have never adequately reckoned with that.

  175. 175.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: Hanania was so superior, he says, that he was too intelligent to succeed at “unskilled” labor in his younger years. A preposterous claim made by a lazy and privileged man.

  176. 176.

    trollhattan

    Hank the Tank earns free trip to Colorado.

    A massive and notoriously mischievous black bear has been captured after more than a year on the run following a string of break-ins in California.

    The 500lbs (227kg) bear, known to fans as Hank the Tank, is believed to have broken into 21 homes in the Lake Tahoe area since 2022. Hank – who is actually a female bear registered as 64F – will be moved to a sanctuary in Colorado. Her three cubs may be transferred to a facility in California’s Sonoma County.

    In a statement released on Friday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) said that biologists had “safely immobilised” the bear, who had been linked to 21 break-ins by DNA evidence.

    Pending a successful health check, Hank will be taken to the Wild Animal Sanctuary near Springfield, Colorado.

    While California authorities have noted that relocation is “not typically an option”, Hank’s fame has given her a reprieve. “Given the widespread interest in this bear, and the significant risk of a serious incident involving the bear, CDFW is employing an alternative solution to safeguard the bear family as well as the people in the South Lake Tahoe community,” the statement said.

    Hank’s three cubs will be taken to a different facility in Petaluma, California “in hopes they can discontinue the negative behaviours they learned from the sow and can be returned to the wild”.

    On the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, Colorado Governor Jared Polis welcomed Hank – and joked that she should have been named “Henrietta the Tank”. Hank was originally believed to have been responsible for over 40 break-ins, but DNA samples proved that the break-ins were also the work of at least two other large bears with a voracious appetite for human food.

    The discovery that Hank was not alone in the crime spree prompted California officials to reassure the public that “no bears will be be euthanised, harmed, relocated to some facility or placed in a zoo”.
    –BBC

  178. 178.

    Jackie

    Fulton County insiders expect former President Donald Trump to be indicted this week in Georgia

    ATLANTA — Many people in Fulton County are preparing for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to announce an indictment against former U.S. President Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election in Georgia.

    https://www.11alive.com/article/news/special-reports/ga-trump-investigation/fulton-county-insiders-expect-former-president-donald-trump-indicted-this-week-georgia/85-10b10a28-e537-49a5-a17e-042d86dd4777

    This flurry of indictments is exhausting! In a good way, of course.

  181. 181.

    Kay

    We think the “No on Issue 1” vote looks good for Tuesday-those of us on the ground. I personally think that if we win it we won on early votes. We had a lot of vote banked before they cranked up the lie machine. Early vote is key for Democrats. It just works with our base.

  183. 183.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: This utter piece of shit, in his APOLOGY:

    Women may have worse views on free speech, but they are also less pro-war and, as Tyler pointed out to me, have historically been less enamored by the great collectivist ideologies that have sought to remake the world. The influence of women on politics therefore isn’t an unalloyed good, as respectable people are supposed to believe to remain in good standing with the mainstream left, nor all bad, as many right-wingers argue. A young LARPer with a tendency to get carried away with certain arguments, enamored by the romantic idea of grappling with supposedly suppressed ancient truths, simply couldn’t handle that level of nuance.

     
    He literally cloaks the belief that women should have no human or civil rights as “grappling with supposedly suppressed ancient truths”. GTFO.

  184. 184.

    smith

    @Kay: I’ve been looking at a donation strategy for Nov. Is there an organization involved in the vote on the abortion issue where my money would be best placed?

    Also, for VA people, are there some lege races you can identify where extra cash might make a difference? Thanks.

  185. 185.

    Jackie

    @Kay: I so hope it’s a big fat NO! on Issue 1!

    🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

    Tomorrow all eyes will be watching Ohio!

  188. 188.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay: ​
      We could have phrased it as a question to clarify the ambiguity instead of “correcting” you.

  189. 189.

    Suzanne

    @smith: You know, I’m never surprised to find out that a terrible man hates women. I am almost always surprised by how clearly they will show it, and then simultaneously not admit it, and how many other people won’t admit it!

  192. 192.

    cain

    That’s your racism right there – trying to minimize Obama’s contribution to this country as President. Apparently, they’ve not just forgotten about the ACA, and Obamacare but also that the country was going through an economic meltdown that Obama handled deftly. A steady, mature drive that got the nation back on track.

    Fucking gaslighters. We can also thank Obama for a generation for Gen Zs who are liberal and grew up with Obama as their north star. An amazingly good looking, charming, charismatic leader who loved kids, played hard and worked hard. Inspired a generation of non-white kids that they can also be president.

  193. 193.

    cain

    @Baud: ohhh.. that would be sweet. Or just a logo of “dark brandon” – of course, it would probably be spraypainted by MAGA.

  194. 194.

    Geminid

    @smith: The Blue Virginia blog is reporting on the relatively few House of Delegates and Senate seats thought to be in play. They are a good source.

  197. 197.

    cain

    @Baud: You’ll be shocked that it’s moved to fruit as well. That’s right, Baud – fruit leather! How does that grab you?!

  198. 198.

    sdhays

    @Sure Lurkalot: I love hearing about women being “emotional” when the top of the misogynist pyramid is so unable to control his emotions he threw ketchup at the walls of the Oval Offie and needed staffers to play Andrew Lloyd Webber on their phones to calm him down.

    Like a literal toddler.

  199. 199.

    smith

    @sdhays: Funny how “emotional” never seems to apply to displays of temper. It’s all about whether you’re likely to cry.

  200. 200.

    Sister Golden Bear

    The chair might have been excessive in the Monterey dock beat-down, but the racist white folks who tried gang attacking the black security guard who dared to tell them to move their illegally parked boat (so the ferry could dock) definitely deserved the street justice they got.

  202. 202.

    cain

    @satby: Bringing the receipts – but since they are MAGA they love abuse. So they’ll keep coming hoping to get a win.

    They should definitely shut the fuck up about complaining – especially if the people htey voted for are not doing jack shit.

  204. 204.

    Suzanne

    One shitty tactic I see a lot….. saying something blatantly misogynistic and then pretending it’s a criticism of white feminism. Naaaaaah, you just hate women, y’all! Especially the ones who are doing better than you!

    There are absolutely valid criticisms to make of white feminism (and TERFs, and others, of course), but this is a dead-ass giveaway.

  205. 205.

    cain

    @Matt McIrvin: Don’t forget all the male chicks that are put into a grinder. The meat industry is a cruel cruel industry and needs be reformed. Now that we have viable sources of protein we need to start winding that shit down.

  209. 209.

    Suzanne

    @sdhays: Rage isn’t an emotion! It’s a male birthright!

    There’s multiple psychological studies indicating that women, on average, exhibit more of the personality traits associated with conscientiousness than men, on average. Self-control and self-discipline are among those traits.

    It’s a supreme force of gaslighting to thus call women the “emotional” ones.

  211. 211.

    glory b

    @Baud: That’s like the “right track/wrong track” questions. I think the country is on the wrong track, but Biden doesn’t have anything to do with that.

  212. 212.

    Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog

    @Suzanne: I think in this country we “clean up” a lot that we ought not to.  Did you know that the actual original title, in Swedish, of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” translates as “Men Who Hate Women” (“Män som hatar kvinnor”)?

    I don’t think that should have been cleaned up.

  214. 214.

    laura

    @Sister Golden Bear: you can now buy chair earrings to commemorate the beatdown, and, of course the tee shirt. Ragnorak Lobster’s nitter.net is a veritable feast for all the resultant cleverness that arose from the idiots trying it in a small town and getting their sorry asses beat up and down the street. Yes, I’m petty af.

  221. 221.

    Ken

    @Sure Lurkalot: So if I follow Ms. Owens’ argument correctly, she’s saying I shouldn’t accept her argument because she’s an emotion-driven woman incapable of logical thought?  It’s not quite up there with “All Cretans are liars,” but close.

    Also, her argument that women are easily influenced by advertising ignores that men are just as susceptible, as she could have figured out by watching any commercial for Budweiser and F-150 trucks ever made.

  223. 223.

    Ken

    @cain: fruit leather

    They’re called Fruit Roll-Ups, and are marketed as a healthy snack. Although given Peeps dioramas, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone had re-webbed a patio chair with the stuff.

  224. 224.

    prostratedragon

    cain@192: Particularly the auto industry bailout. He and his team helped us dodge a huge blow while already down there, and in the face of some opposition.

  226. 226.

    Chris

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Yay for bluish states!

    Moving back to a state where I had Medicaid basically as soon as I could produce a couple bills showing my new residency really did feel like a low-key crossing-the-Iron-Curtain moment.

    “Welcome to the blue states of America.  We have a lot of problems and we don’t pretend otherwise, but, we’re not going to let you end up dead simply because you have no income, not if we can help it.  We have at least that much respect for human life.  You’ve lived in places that aren’t like that, you know how profound the difference is.  Please remember to use your vote to ensure that we stay this way, and if possible that we become even more so.”

  228. 228.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Suzanne:

    What’s a young LARPer to do?

    //

    Just pathetic.

    And this crap gets platformed by Universities and national newspapers? Stop the world, I want to get off.

    Makes me question why I would even want my kids to aspire to college, honestly. They can get better lies for free.

  229. 229.

    RaflW

    @Anyway: Every winter when I drive across Nebraska, I see (and smell!) more and more concentrated feed lot activity. I even see the massive pens and their 1000s of black cows from 33,000 ft when flying MSP-DEN.

    It’s completely put me off all beef except very, very occasional servings from grass fed, local-origin farms.

  230. 230.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne:

    I genuinely think misogyny is the very seed of the problems we are dealing with, because it is really part of the politics of the home, and that is where these terrible dudes are acculturated first. That is not to say that racism, homophobia, ableism, anti-Semitism, etc. are not equally toxic and harmful. Just that one of the very first things these terrible men come to believe is that women exist for their service and comfort. And they are taught that beginning the day they are born.

    This, this, this, this, THIS! It’s a massive and mostly unspoken problem. Because men, who are generally still in charge, don’t think it’s a problem.

  231. 231.

    artem1s

    @cain: ​
     
    He also inspired a generation of white kids that they can be president and or other elected official and get things done and not be an awful human being while they are doing it. For a party that spends so much time whinging about the lack of father figures in the AA community, they have completely failed to elect an actual decent human being into the WH since Eisenhower. That’s a long time for young White men to go without a competent White role model. Never forget they are livid that their kids and grandkids spent 8 years looking up to a Black man that was far more competent than any candidate they’ve been able to product in the last 70 years.

  233. 233.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Perhaps Weiss and her ilk are of the “if it’s true it’s not racist” world, where you can say the most racist things and then say “but it’s true”.

  234. 234.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Who raises these men? They’re bringing up selfish monsters.

    Parents who treat their children as if they are at the center of the universe. I think most people grow out of believing this is true, but for a narcissist being treated this way when young must be a hell of a drug. IMHO we now have overcorrected, and treat our children as if they are too important. There has to be a balance between “you are the center of my universe completely” and “you can fend for yourself”.

  235. 235.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It’s not an apology, it’s one of those things they feel they have to write when they get exposed. He’s not sorry he said any of those things, and he probably still believes them, but he knows in order to keep his lucrative visiting professorship and association with the Times he has to at least appear to be sorry.

  236. 236.

    Anyway

    That Richard H. person also said some gross things about “obese” people – esp overweight women. It was beyond the pale. On top of the mysogyny.

  237. 237.

    Soprano2

    @sdhays: When they say emotional they mean crying. They literally never admit that things like outsized rage are also “emotional”. It’s like men saying they hate to shop. I like to test that by asking about how they behave in a Lowe’s or Bass Pro Shops. LOL What they mean is “I hate to shop for things women believe are important, like decent clothes”.

  238. 238.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Yes, who most often exhibits “Road rage”? Who is most likely to get angry and shoot someone because of that anger? Yet women are called the emotional gender, and told that we cannot make logical decisions because of it. They base a lot of this on us having periods. It’s disgusting.

  239. 239.

    Soprano2

    @Yarrow: I think a lot of these men are also so happy when they don’t have to do what their mother tells them to do anymore; they resent the hell out of having to do anything any woman asks them to do.

  241. 241.

    dnfree

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Vegetarian eggs seem to mean that the hens were fed vegetarian food.  If one happens to catch an insect, someone makes the hen spit it out, probably.  (Most vegetarians eat eggs and dairy.)

  242. 242.

    Timill

    @Anyway: I’d suggest asking them what they’d like/expect/usually have on their menu. That way you won’t wind up with stuff that’s vegan, but they don’t like.

  243. 243.

    Princess

    @Suzanne: I know someone who had absolutely heinous beliefs, the worst Aryan nation white supremacy stuff. He changed his mind in his early 20s. And without prompting, he wrote about what he believed and why he changed. He didn’t wait until he was caught and then say oops. That’s the way to do it.

  244. 244.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: Get some good bread, peanut butter and honey, cashews, dried cranberries etc. Maybe some oatmilk and cereal. Tell him if he wants tofu he’s gonna have to bring his own.

  245. 245.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Betty Cracker: my sibling’s attitude is that all sea crustaceans are sea bugs/cockroaches. Sibling’s spouse has been summering in Maine since childhood. So I join in the discussion with pictures of lobster and recipes for vegan lobster rolls.

    And Mr. Rudbek found a kid’s book on crab versus lobster- which one wins. My sibling’s comment was that this was like Hitler turning on Stalin.

Comments are closed.