After all, the original St. Nick rescued three desperate unmarried women by gifting them dowries. And the holiday celebrates a child born to a woman pregnant by someone other than her husband…
Won’t be here for holiday giving, but if you want the gamer in your life to feel recognized (or just old):
Agreed, although stamps are now almost less mainstream than D&D was 50 years ago ??
— Christian Schaller (@cfkschaller) December 4, 2023
Jewish Americans embody what the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said:
“A people whose capacity for joy cannot be destroyed is itself indestructible.”
Rallying with pride, unity, and even joy in the face of pain – just like the Hanukkah candles that defiantly burned miraculously. pic.twitter.com/34ppL7o4M7
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 12, 2023
Elsewhere…
A comment beneath contempt. https://t.co/otmGRKLudW
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 12, 2023
I mean who would’ve thought any different
— Johnny (@THELove_Muscle) December 12, 2023
New: JD Vance says Ukraine should cede land and cut a deal with Putin to end the war
“No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to ‘91 boundaries.”
He’s not worried Putin keeps going.
w/ ?@megan_lebowitz? https://t.co/QjxcHSpznS
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 12, 2023
@JDVance1 pic.twitter.com/ajuZufjlmu
— ????MYSTIC??????I AM JACK'S INDICTMENTS ?? (@MDomino07) December 12, 2023
I really believe the R’s understand how important Putin can be in their campaigns with the hack and leak, the smears, the bot and troll farms, the dark oligarch money to super pacs, and they actively do things like this to attract Putins support.
— David Doak (@SouthPoint1000) December 12, 2023
On The Road – DavidC – In My Neighborhood, Frederick, MD
Betty
I suppose it is possible for these Republicans to become more contemptible, but it won’t be easy.
Geminid
@Betty: They’re trying. The Freedom Caucus just picked my old Congressman, Bob (No)Good, as its new Chairman. Just a nasty man.
Gvg
How about Russia cede some land….and free the other lands that they have kept by conquest since the USSR fell that tried to become countries. There have been some bloody revolts put down.
I wondered when this war started going badly for them if they would eventually lose control elsewhere. Isn’t Belarus a puppet government? Anyway, it’s been quieter than I expected but if Russia bleeds itself badly enough, that won’t last. Also treating Moscow so differently than the rest of Russia has got to cause resentment. Has it always been that way? It’s almost as if the country is a city state like Rome, not a country the way we think of it. The glimpses I read seem very different than Soviet Russia. And it seems like an explosive mess which actually make our problems with the so called Christian right seem less extreme. We have our problems, but they aren’t the only ones in the world.
Russia ceding land was a sarcastic response to the Russian puppets. Revolt and revolution does seem like a long term possibility though.
OzarkHillbilly
Probably already been talked about around here but,
“But not as long as we are sitting here.” Fuck these cocksuckers.
p.a.
I won’t watch Fox, but from those with the stomach for it, how is it framing this Rethug betrayal? IIRC, in the past there were mixed messages by the various talking heads, some more pro-Putin, some with the old anti-Soviet carryover.
NotMax
@Betty
Too on the (rubber) nose?
TS
Do ANY republicans know the history of Hitler’s demand for land in the 1930s. Do they know of Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” after giving Sudetenland, a largely German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia to Hitler.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly:
And with that, the contemptible chuckle-fucks on the TX Supreme Court set Karsan’s medical judgment aside and substituted their own wholly unqualified assessment. Well, at least they’re making it plain so everyone can understand what’s happening.
lowtechcyclist
Yeah, because they were so satisfied with what they grabbed in 2014 (Crimea, Donbas) that they stopped there and haven’t troubled anyone since.
Fucking quisling.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. How can the voters of Texas put up with this? How can they choose this?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Whenever a woman suffers at the hands of misogynists, a Republican voter gets his horns.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
You mean the ones who voted multiple times for Bush, for Perry and for Abbott? Those voters?
Q.E.D.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: If they really wanted to make it plain, they would start calling women “incubators”.
@Baud: Too true.
satby
@Betty Cracker: And Cox is leaving / may have already left the state to get the abortion, in spite of the fact that her doctors thought travel was also dangerous to her health.
Heather Cox Richardson ties this story to the Republicans attempts to poison pill the Ukrainian (and Israel, Taiwan, etc.) bill with draconian immigration restrictions as a counter to the fury women will feel over Dobbs and its effects. Great article, a must read.
Geminid
@Geminid: Bob Good (Va-5th) is the guy who beat out incumbent Denver Riggleman for the 2020 nomination. He went on to beat Democrat Cameron Webb by 5 points, the same margin by which Trump carried the 5th CD.
Redistricting made the 5th a few points more Republican, and Good had only nominal competition in his 2022 reelection race. This time Good has a credible primary opponent in Delegate John McGuire, who is calling Good a RINO. Unlike in 2020 the nomination will be decided by a primary and not caucuses.
The 5th CD runs from Charlottesville and Albemarle County south to the North Carolina border.
OzarkHillbilly
2 thoughts: #1 Good for him, #2 it must be nice.
Matt McIrvin
@TS: I suspect the correct analogy isn’t Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, it’s Stalin outright allying with him in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (and finding out the hard way how good an idea that was).
Suzanne
Can I note that I hate J.D. Vance’s fucking face so fucking much?! I hate it. He’s developed what Mr. Suzanne and I call “the Young Republican smirk”. That facial hair is fucking reprehensible. In order to not look like a total fucken meathead asshole, you’ve gotta keep it neat. Shave lower down the cheek and give it a nice, sharp line. Keep it conditioned and trimmed. And fucken don’t let your eyebrows do…whatever his eyebrows are doing, Fuck you, J.D. Vance.
Speaking of Mr. Suzanne, today is our fourteenth wedding anniversary. Our marriage is a bratty teenager asking for a ride to the mall.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Happy anniversary!
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Stalin, like Hitler, was well aware it wasn’t worth the paper it was scribbled on.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Without interest really cuts down on the eye popping value of his contract.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne:
LOL and congrats.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: British authors Anthony Read and David Fisher wrote an excellent history of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. It’s titled The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941 (1989). A well-researched and fascinating book.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Traditional 14th anniversary gift is, IIRC, ivory.
And I don’t mean the soap.
;)
Suzanne
@NotMax: Guess what kind of jokes we made the year that the traditional gift was wood.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I asked for a Cameo from George Santos.
LiminalOwl
@lowtechcyclist: J.D. Vance also (this has probably been mentioned here, but I missed it) formally requested an FBI investigation of Kagan—for attempting to incite rebellion against the US (!!!) via the WaPo piece in which he warned of the real possibility of a Trump dictatorship.
LiminalOwl
@Suzanne: Happy anniversary! (And of course full agreement on Vance.)
Ken
@NotMax: As has been known since caveman days, there’s no truer symbol of marital devotion than a tooth cut out of a large animal.
EarthWindFire
Is it illegal for a state Supreme Court to lie? Asking for a friend.
@Suzanne: JD Vance’s looks are the only truthful thing about him: garbage human looks like garbage. Happy Anniversary!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: Today is our fifty-third anniversary. Mr DAW is taking my car in for an oil change.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Thanks for the HCR link. She’s an unusually lucid thinker.
Geminid
@NotMax: I think what threw Stalin’s calculations off was the swift collapse of France in 1940. When Stalin negotiated the treaty in late August of 1939, he thought France and Great Britain would keep Germany tied up for a while.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Happy anniversary!
OzarkHillbilly
Mine is the same way. I started growing it when I was in the hospital for a week. Afterwards I was in so much pain for a couple more weeks I just didn’t care. Eventually I decided I liked not having to shave my face and kept it. Now a days I mow it once a month or 2 when it gets long enough to bother me. I really don’t care how it looks to other people..
And a Happy A to you and your hubby
Dorothy A. Winsor
@EarthWindFire: Her doctor said she needed an abortion. So, are they saying the rest of the world should stay out of it? No, of course not.
In addition to their other faults, they’re cowards. They’re afraid if they do what’s right, MAGAs will threaten and possibly harm them.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
As I habitually respond whenever anyone comments one way or the other on the facial fur, “You should see it from in here.”
:)
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: Happy Anniversary !
OzarkHillbilly
@LiminalOwl: There goes that pesky 1st Amendment again.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Congratulations! I see y’all are as romantic as we are! I’m going to Trader Joe’s. LOL.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I could never have my beard longer than an inch or so, especially my mustache. Dragging it thru my soup would drive me nuts.
LiminalOwl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Happy anniversary!
LiminalOwl
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, if they eliminated that pesky First Amendment, the Second would have its proper glorious precedence, right? /s
Suzanne
@OzarkHillbilly: I want to be clear: there are totally acceptable ways to do facial hair. J.D. Vance isn’t. I have a feeling it’s because he has kind of a round face and he thinks he needs to let it be somewhat unkempt so that he doesn’t look twelve, but instead, he just looks…. ungroomed. And I don’t get that for people in the public eye. It’s one thing for running to pick up eggs and pizza. It’s another at the course of your highly public-facing job.
I mean, I remember when we were offended by a tan suit.
LiminalOwl
@OzarkHillbilly: My father liked to claim that his beard provided a spare pantry for emergency snacks.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Kay
There’s no exception for the life of the mother in Texas.
The decision is difficult to decipher – it’s essentially circular reasoning – they’ve presented physicians with a riddle to solve before they can provide emergency medical care to women, which means there is no practical, working exception for the life of the mother in Texas.
The court suggests, as a kind of afterthought, that the Texas Medical Board should provide guidance using “hypotheticals and the like” but they’re not really interested in the practical realities for women so no rush or anything.
It’s been a year and a half and the various priests and ministers and pastors who wrote the law haven’t issued any “guidance” so clearly womens lives are not a priority. Imagine what will happen to the members of the Texas Medical Board if they issue guidance of any kind- the anti abortion lobby will come for them and they’ll be replaced with religious nuts in a week.
Gin & Tonic
I grew a beard once, a long time ago. My girlfriend said it looked awful. She was right.
We’ve now been married 47 years, and the beard has never come back. But the mustache is permanent.
catclub
Unique talents are unique. Pay up. I also remember the story of Babe Ruth getting paid more than the President. “I had a better year.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Suzanne: It is nobody’s business how a man keeps his beard, anymore than it is anybody’s business how a woman wears her makeup or dresses or weighs.
As far as the tan suit, I thought we didn’t care what Republicans thought.
OzarkHillbilly
@LiminalOwl: I always say it’s where I store my leftovers.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: As I’ve said before, I don’t believe that Republicans who cross MAGA orthodoxy are in more personal danger than any Democrat in the same states.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: I used to have a mustache, back in my bachelor days, but 5 or 6 women in my life sat me down for an honest-to-god intervention and demanded that it go. It went.
Michael Bersin
Prefiling of bills started on December 1st for the Missouri General Assembly session which opens in January. The right wingnut republican supermajorities in both houses never fail to go full-on insane:
SB 870: the only Confederate flag that ever mattered was a white rag on a stick
It’s labeled as the “Restoring State Sovereignty Through Nullification Act”.
It all goes downhill from there.
catclub
If my misinformation is correct, there is also a bit of ivory in a raccoon. Not its teeth.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: When places like El Salvador passed the abortion bans that are the models for these, they typically didn’t even have a “life of the mother” exception because the dogma was that an abortion that was necessary to save the life of the mother did not exist. If you include the exception but you still think they don’t exist, it’s the same effect.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Creepy Trump flunky Jason Miller has the worst facial hair in public life, IMO. It’s because he’s asking his goatee to be a chin, and the neat little thatch he grows where a chin should be is just not up to the job. In his case, a longer, more unruly beard might be a better chin substitute, though a commodious paper bag would be the best solution of all.
EarthWindFire
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And they said it’s up to a doctor in their ruling, so they’re lying. It really isn’t. Isn’t it illegal for a court to lie to the public? Guess it isn’t. At least not now.
What pissed me off most about this ruling is that the courts are allowed to judge a doctor’s intent and decision making. Texas’ health and life so-called exceptions are up to the court’s judgment of the doctor’s “good faith” or actual medical ability. What confered that knowledge on them? Was there some extra special ability they got to determine medical knowledge handed out with their robes? /s
hueyplong
@catclub: I think it was about 1930 when Ruth in fact did have a better year than Hoover.
Soprano2
@Kay: They figured out a way to outright ban abortion without actually passing a law saying it’s banned. It’s reprehensible.
Soprano2
@Michael Bersin: So they’re saying they don’t want Missouri to be ruled by the laws of the United States. That’s right up there with wanting to prosecute women who get abortions with homicide! They are lunatics, I cannot believe they keep getting re-elected.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
D&D on stamps? Wow, who knew.
Started playing in…1975. Still have my original box set of 3 books. Before college, we all thought it was a total nerd thing to play but in the fall of 79, freshmen year at CU-Boulder, I had my stuff out and people wandered by, saw it, and asked if I’d run something. I was gobsmacked in that some of the “beautiful people” on the dorm floor wanted in. Two of those people became lifelong friends, one was the best man at my wedding 40 years ago and is hosting a quiet retirement party for me this weekend.
Haven’t played in ages but still a big, historical miniatures wargamer (www.hmgs.org).
catclub
FTFY
Matt McIrvin
@LiminalOwl: It sounds like it was “sauce for the gander” trolling–the logic was that if Trump was guilty of encouraging insurrection for riling up the January 6th mob, then Kagan must be guilty of the same thing for warning us about Trump, hur hur hur checkmate never-Trumper neocons.
But totalitarians and bullies always justify their shit with “NO U” rhetoric.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
No one will know if they’re killing women – the US has an extremely high rate of maternal mortality anyway, compared to other wealthy countries and Texas is one of the worst states to be a delivering mother or newborn in anyway. They’ll just fold the new dead women numbers into the old dead women numbers and no one will be the wiser. She’ll have died as a result of pregnancy complications – women die of that every day – it’s barely studied or tracked in the US. An increase won’t even be noted. How many women quietly and obediently died in Ireland before the single high profile case where the family resisted and made a lot of noise? They’re telling me that one woman was the only fatality? Bullshit.
Scout211
New York CNN
Take that, Stefanik!
Suzanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Eh. I think the image craft of public figures, which entails everything that’s a choice (clothes, grooming, etc.) is up for discussion. Like Casey DeSantis trying to look like Jackie O or TFG dyeing himself orange and spraying on his hair. Those are deliberate decisions to look a certain way and have some degree of semiotic importance.
I think comments about someone’s body (weight, height, health, etc.) are off-limits.
Matt McIrvin
@EarthWindFire:
I think the logic is kind of along the same lines as some tinpot dictator saying “you have the inalienable right to criticize the government, and the secret police have the inalienable right to shoot you in the head afterwards”?
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Jesus Hussein Christ. That facial hair is so bad.
He should stay inside and not come out until he can fix it. That might be forever. Better safe than sorry.
Michael Bersin
@Soprano2:
It’s the Missouri General Assembly. Gerrymandering works.
Wading through hundreds of pre-filed bills is now an annual end-of-year tradition for me. The right wingnut insanity is usually easy enough to spot. It helps knowing who the usual suspects are.
The bad and sad thing is that actual practical bills that help solve issues affecting Missourians get short shrift when the performative right wingnut crazy bills eat up legislative time.
God loves the right wingnut Missouri General Assembly, it’s the people of Missouri who get to suffer.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: They’re just following the tradition of John C. Calhoun in 1832.
Kay
@Soprano2:
The decision has that religous fundie arrogance and certainty that drives me fucking crazy. They all think they speak directly for God and it shows in their fucking assinine, poorly reasoned pronouncements. “We present you with a riddle, sinner. Solve it or you’ll hang.” In their giant ego fantasy world they’re all God. I read the new religous nut Speaker of the House tells people God sent him on a mission to replace secular laws with his nutjob religion. Yeah, of course God did. Because you’re so special. I though these people were taught humility? What happened to that?
Kay
@Michael Bersin:
Its so great that you’re a state law and politics specialist and have been for as long as I’ve been reading your comments. We need 10,000 more of you in the Democratic Party.
Jeffro
Happy anniversary, Suzanne!
In other news and notes…would it be that hard for the media to connect the dots on just how thoroughly Putin-owned today’s Republican Party is? There used to be outliers like Paul and Rohrbacher; nowadays it seems like it’s become a majority position.
(and per that last Doak tweet: since they are lacking any principles save power & marinated fully in the RWNJ ‘news’ bubble, I have ZERO doubt that a large and growing number of GOP elected officials understand, appreciate, and are willing to make use of a hostile foreign power’s capabilities in our elections. Why not? It worked for trumpov)
Scout211
I don’t know all the ins and outs of Texas abortion law right now, but I am wondering (and worried) about what will happen when Kate Cox returns to Texas. Her legal team (Center for Reproductive Rights) announced her travel to another state for the abortion, so I assume they have a plan in place to defend her travel for the procedure but I am not clear on what the law states.
Anyone familiar with what could happen to her when she gets back to Texas?
Suzanne
@Scout211: I’ve had that same thought…. I’m scared she’ll get arrested, as will everyone who helped her.
They are terrorizing this poor woman. Basically in front of her kids.
Kay
@Scout211:
I actually think her lawyer is at risk under the Texas law. The lawyer attempted to get her an abortion. Remember- any Right wing nut can start the religious tribunal process to prosecute the sinner.
Jeffro
Also in other news: NH Gov Chris Sununu will be endorsing Nikki Haley. Not a huge, earth-shaking event but bad for Ron DeSantis and so that’s a good thing.
I will be interested to see how long it take ol’ Ron to get the message and get out. My guess is that when he does, he’ll endorse trump. I cannot imagine being able to live with myself after that if I were him, but he’s already shown his boot-licking tendencies towards trump before, many times.
TS
@Matt McIrvin:
It may not be all the answer, but those suggesting Ukraine give away some of their land to Russia to achieve peace are 100% Chamberlain. I’m sure the GOP thinking Putin is their friend is an additional pre WWII similarity
JWR
Maybe because Ukraine has been standing in his way? Geez, SATSQ’s, (Simple answers to absofuckingly STUPID questions.)
Also this:
Umm, how’s about you start riding Biden’s a$$ to send them all the arms and ammunition they can can use? See? This way, you’re actually being really tough on the opposition!
Did this guy really write a bestseller, or did he use a ghostwriter? Because his lack of intelligence sticks out like a sore thumb.
Kay
@Jeffro:
The national GOP grift industry is so flush with billionaire cash and Russian money DeSantis will never have to work another day in his life. There’s no real “market” in GOP politics. No one really fails. They built a billionaire funded safety net for their people. It’s why none of them oppose Trump. It doesn’t matter if they lose- as long as they remain loyal to the Party they will be taken care of forever.
Kay
@JWR:
JD Vance’s designated role is protecting Republicans from the consequences of abandoning Ukraine. It’s why the billionaires purchased him.
frosty
That meme with Zelenskyy explaining his peace plan is the perfect answer to all these appeasers. Fuck’em (h/t ef goldman).
TS
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Many congratulations, Monday was our 47th, Mr TS drove me to a doc appointment & neither of us remembered until the doc wrote the date on a form I had to complete & I blurted it out to the doc.
NotMax
FYI.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Happy anniversary, and may you and Mr.S. have many more!
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Ah yes, the traditional gift for a 53rd anniversary!
May you and Mr. DAW have many more years of happiness together.
Omnes Omnibus
@TS: Eh, at Munich, Chamberlain was trying to buy time (badly and with other people’s land), but he at least knew that Hitler was an enemy. IOW he may have been wrong, but he wasn’t pro-fascist. We cannot say the same for the GOP.
frosty
@Suzanne: Congrats on your anniversary and best wishes for many more!
OzarkHillbilly
@Suzanne: I will only note that I don’t care how politicians look. Opinions differ.
Soprano2
@Scout211: Good. The whole thing was a setup anyway. I wish they had all responded with a speech about how freedom of speech is one of our most cherished values, and doesn’t Congress believe in freedom of speech even when it’s odious? Are Republicans now advocating for the idea that speech should be punished? Because I remember just a few days ago when they whined about people being “cancelled” for their speech.
TBone
@satby: I couldn’t sleep last night so I read my daily Heather Cox Richardson. I’m a Christian type spiritual person but any Christian impulses I managed to hang onto through all this flew out the door and for the first time ever I prayed for death to come for the fascists and their network – fiery, ugly, painful death. Never has anyone been able to pierce me with such burning anger like these fucked up repuke pols and their ball gargling thundertwat leader. Fuck.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: +1
Life, and history, is complicated. Bumper-sticker slogans aren’t the way the real world works.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Speaking of religious tribunals:
Women were condescendingly told for 50 years that fundamentalist religous would not take away their right to bodily autonomy, but of course that is exactly what happened. We’re now being sneered at for tracking these laws where women will be imprisoned – but the number of the laws are growing and each one gets more and more sponsors. Just be aware that this is coming. I think Lousiana will be the first to put all women of child bearing age into the criminal code in a special category for pregnancy crimes.
The US is already a negative outlier on womens autonomy with the abortion bans – even Saudi Arabia has an exception for life/health of the mother. We’re in the company of the most backward countries. We’ll be ALONE when we start criminlally prosecuting women – no other country does that.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: +1
Still, university presidents are the public face of the institution. They have to be aware of the legal issues, but they really, really have to be aware of the way memes are weaponized these days. It’s their job to be able to handle situations like these unfair attacks and be prepared with a sensible response.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@LiminalOwl:
Yeah, I saw that. However loathsome I find him at any given moment, he always finds new ways to prove to me that he’s even more loathsome than that.
I think he disgusts me even more than TFG, which is a very challenging bar to burrow under.
Jeffro
It’s a really great point. There is no ‘feedback loop’ for these people – all they have to do is say the right things inside the FoxBubble, and they’ll still get paid (either by the taxpayers or the billionaires).
Just keep the outrage machine fed, and keep doing the bidding of the rich & Russia, and you can keep cashing the checks. Sickening.
Timill
@Scout211: The Texas Treasury gets to cut a whole bunch of $10K checks…
Omnes Omnibus
Poll news: In the seven states where the election was closest in 2020 — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Michigan — Biden has a 4-point lead among Americans who said they were sure to vote.
(Twitter link) Bad polls this far out don’t worry me, so I can’t get too excited by good ones either. That being said, if we are going to talk about one, why not the other?
OzarkHillbilly
Our Geminid viewing forecast is
12th: Bad
13th: Good (late)
14th: Fair
15th: Bad
Blech.
Kay
And when people tell you that the US is NOT in the group of “most backward countries” re: womens rights and autonomy because some US states have preserved womens rights, tell them that doesn’t count. It doesn’t count if half your country beats Saudi Arabia for womens rights, just like it wouldn’t count if some counties in Ireland stopped killing women. The US is in the bottom tier on womens health and rights in pregnancy. Christ, even POLAND will be beating us when their new government takes power.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: Dude, we see Geminid here virtually everyday. Whether that is a good or bad thing I leave to judgment of the individual reader.
Soprano2
@Kay: In MO some of them want to charge women who get abortions with homicide! It’s insane.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: I think they could have handled it better, but I don’t think they deserve to be fired. I will say, none of them seem to be that aware of what Republicans in Congress are like these days. They should have been better prepared for that.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic:
My story is the reverse of that. I was clean-shaven up to the age of 39, when my wife and I had already been married for two years.
I had two weeks of spare time between dissertation defense and showing up for my teaching job, so I stopped shaving just to see what it would look like. At the end of the two weeks, I was getting ready to shave it off – IMO it looked pretty pathetic – but my wife liked it and demanded I keep it.
And it’s filled in quite nicely over the 30+ years since then, but boy howdy, it really took years.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: Wonder how fast the press will deep six this poll?
OzarkHillbilly
@Omnes Omnibus: I knew somebody was going to be a smartass, I just expected it to be him. ;-)
Kay
@Soprano2:
They have to. If abortion is murder they have to charge them. I read a poll of anti abortion voters right after Dobbs – 60-some precent of them want women punished criminally. Of course they do. GOP politicians are just responding to their anti abortion base.
Louisiana has gone furthest mainstreaming criminalizing womens health care so they’ll be the first to take the US to a new low internationally as far as womens rights.
JWR
@Kay: Yeah, I know. It’s the same thing with Stefanik. We know that she knows how to behave in moderate, thoughtful, (but still stupid), even polite company, but MAGA + $$$ grabbed her by the hoo haw and you can practically see it eating away at her soul.
OzarkHillbilly
To the surprise of absolutely no one:
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Omnes Omnibus: Also, let’s not forget that Chamberlain witnessed the World War, in which most of a generation of Europe’s youth were senselessly slaughtered for no good reason. Nobody with a conscience(1) wanted a repeat of that; it was called the War to End War for a reason.
Chamberlain was wrong for all the right reasons. What the fuck is James David Vance’s excuse?
(1) This obviously does not include Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: I agree. A university president’s role is highly political, so they have to be aware of and able to handle politics as a basic part of the job. That Stefanik would set a trap was as predictable as the sunrise, and they walked straight into it. If you read their remarks in context, their positions don’t sound terrible, but of course almost nobody bothered with that, just as Stefanik intended.
NotMax
Oh my.
Kay
@JWR:
Ugh. The liberals who are jumping on her insane crusade against the college presidents are nuts. That leads nowhere good. I can’t help but notice all the presidents we’re trying to fire for insufficient hatred of Palestinians are women, too. Come on. How stupid are people? Stefanik set them up. There was no way to answer those questions with any kind of nuance or thoughtfullness and with a recognition of 1st amendment rights without being demonized. It’s a fucking blatant witch hunt. And I do mean “witch”. You’ll notice there’s no wizards on the chopping block.
Gretchen
@Kay: David French had a good article about fundamentalism. He said they share three traits: certainty, ferocity and solidarity. Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/opinion/donald-trump-fundamentalists-evangelical.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FU0.5xvb.V2AQUdByUJ0j&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share
Suzanne
@Jeffro:
God. Can you imagine being such a disgusting sycophant?! Have some fucken pride.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Someone on social media noted that there are two reasons you get called to testify at a Congressional hearing in this way, One, you are in legal jeopardy. Two, you are going to get scolded. They said the uni presidents prepared for scenario one and it was the wrong choice.
lowtechcyclist
@Michael Bersin:
I’m back to “if they want to secede, let ’em secede.” Which is what nullification would effectively be.
Let them deal with the angry mobs of citizens when they stop receiving Social Security checks and are no longer covered by Medicare. If they change their minds, we can re-admit them to the Union with territorial status.
And if multiple contiguous states secede and then later beg for readmission, we use it as an opportunity to rebalance the U.S. Senate by forming new states from combinations of the seceded states. Welcome back, Alasippi. You too, Arkansouri and Kentuckesee.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Well, I suspect there won’t be amy more protests about US policy in the ME at college campuses now, so they shut that down pretty effectively. Good job, free speech protectors! I guess Bibi gets a blank check now.
I knew he’d fucking make this assault endless since he was told “you can stay as long as the war continues” and completely predictably he’s ramping up the war. How the US ended up backing this far Right nutcase in his quest to remain President For Life is beyond me, but here we are. Has he fucking endorsed Trump yet? Because you know that’s coming.
RaflW
@satby: via H.C.R.: “It requires the government to build Trump’s wall and allows the seizure of private land to do it.”
Freedumb Caucus once again showing their true colors.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suzanne: He sold his pride long ago. Didn’t hurt anymore than selling his soul. Not like he was using either one.
Kay
@Gretchen:
Religious fundamentalism and medicine are incompatible. There is not a physician in this country who will meet the Texas requirements for a 100% pronouncement of “she will die” because that just isn’t how medicine works. Anyone who has to use any nuance or has any grey areas or uncertain outcomes cannot defend themselves against that religious fervor and certainty.
They’ll always burn the witch. Witch burning wasn’t just protestant puritans. That was the US version. There were Jewish witch burners and Muslim witch burners too. It isn’t “Christianity” that is incompatible with modernity and civil rights- it’s fundamentalist religions.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
Tru dat, so maybe Chamberlain should’ve avoided providing one.
taumaturgo
I see lots of anger and deserved condemnation among this community, but very little if suggestions of demands for possible moves by the democrats to mobilize the base. Besides using the abortion issue as a fundraising tool, what is the democrats’ leadership or grassroots groups current strategy?
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: Sure, hindsight is pretty good.
JWR
@Kay:
Yep! And those were the only clips SoCal TV news played: Stefanik snarling, followed by the answers given, which to me sounded… acceptable, if not exactly good.
Gretchen
@Kay: yes. They pretend not to understand that there’s no hard line of mom will die. It’s all gray area and they don’t do gray.
Kay
@Gretchen:
Think about the position they have put medical providers in. If they save the womens life they are subject to prosecution for an abortion but if they let her die they are home free. This is what I mean about the sloppy thinking and reasoning on the anti abortion side. These laws are just junk. They didn’t think thru any of it. And this is the work of the Best and Brightest on the Right! They don’t have the dopes in the cheap seats setting policy. This is the work of the Federalist Society members at Notre Dame law school. It’s garbage. The laws are full of contradictions and negative incentives.
Gretchen
@Kay: another good article by an OB who had to call a state legislator to get him to decide whether her patient was close enough to death to qualify for an abortion. His answer: whatever you think is best , doctor. Duh. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/abortion-laws.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FU0.m6YG.flyv76ntFkHI&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: Really weird (to me) that he isn’t getting interest on the deferred money. I guess it’s all funny money (at those amounts), so it doesn’t really matter.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: Happy Anniversary! Make sure you visit Hot Topic.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: I think he (Stalin) had hopes. It was supposedly hard to convince him in 1st few hours of invasion that Hitler had attacked.
Paul in KY
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Happy Anniversary to y’all too!
artem1s
GOP is at least consistent. They will nominate the absolute biggest asshole they can find everytime. That Vance beat out Josh Mandel for Ohio asshole of the year in 2022 says a lot about who he is. If only we had a competent MSM – “Senator Vance, Should the US concede Alaska back to Russia in order to appease President Putin. It was after all originally part of their empire? How about we give TX back to Mexico if they promise to stop sending caravans of immigrants across the border? I hear Canada will be nice to us if we give them back Detroit, Sandusky, and Toledo. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper if W had just ceded Manhattan to bin Laden or Prince Bandar Bush rather than fight 2 wars for over 10 years that cost the US over 3 trillion?”
Kay
@JWR:
They can’t ban speech content on college campuses! That’s against the law. They were (obviously) trying to show that they were sensitive to the issue without trashing their own fucking student body and vowing revenge. I don’t think any answer would have been sufficient. They were the designated fall guys for people who are angry. Someone had to be punished and they can’t actually punish students for protesting so they found a proxy for the students.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Quit being sensible, it gets in the way of the doomscrolling!
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
This place doesn’t exactly have a shortage of smartasses – if it hadn’t been Omnes, no telling who would have gotten there first!
Soprano2
@Kay: I noticed that immediately. It’s not a coincidence that they’re all women and/or women of color. Not a white man in sight. I do wish they had responded with a speech about their reverence for freedom of speech on college campuses, since all the conservatives claim to be oh so concerned about that. Suddenly, they want students expelled for things they say. Wonder why that is?
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
They worry me a little because Obama’s polling was not good in 2012 but it was consistently slightly better than his opponent so while I think polling can certainly be focused on too much, “the trend is your friend” is what I use for investing (successfully, I think) and the trend is not good in these numbers. I also think the bad polls rattle Democrats so you see more infighting when they think they’re losing. I’m sympathetic to that. I don’t like to lose either.
I’m comforted by the fact that I think Biden is a genuinely good President. I don’t know what he could have done differently so in a way I’m fatalistic about it. He did a great job. If they don’t reward it then they deserve what they get. I will be very sad because I think he’s the most liberal President economically since FDR. We won’t get better than him on that issue. I hope people enjoy their cheap food under Trump because they’ll be well fed poor people. Biden is looking at wealth buidling for the lower and middle classes, not this weeks gas prices.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
What, that’s a new principle?
Kay
@Soprano2:
You see that weird inability to just speak a lot in academics. It drives me fucking crazy. They need to turn off “smart” and turn on “clear and concise” – even if they lose some nuance. They are allowed to defend vigorously.
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I think some people here were just talking about The Twelve Chairs–when I read it, a detail I found interesting was that all of these early-Soviet people despised Neville Chamberlain, but for completely different reasons than the ones for which he is disparaged today.
Kay
A spate of good polls for Biden would rally Dems and make them much less likely to bicker. I hope we see some soon. A trend downward worries me because success inspires more success and you can get in a kind of losing spiral. I noticed the Trump people (Fox employees) pushed back very strongly about his announcement he plans to be a dictator – they’re doing that because they think he is going to win.
But, again, there ain’t shit I can do about the dumb ass “swing voters” other than hope they swing my way. There’s no logic to them at all.
Thor Heyerdahl
Nominated
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s true for physicians too. I watched some of a med mal trial recently and the “real” physicians (not professional physician experts, who know how to testify) refused to state any outcome as black and white. It’s just not what they do and it’s honest, right? In their field all kinds of things can happen so false certainty is dishonesty. But God, the lawyers were just killing them -portraying them as hedging and uncertain – and I bet the jury buys it because PEOPLE like certainty. It’s easier.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
I saw that proposition before…. let all of the red states come back in as one big state. Two senators. That big mega-state is still smaller than California, BTW.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
But the rest of us – almost certainly a majority of voters, even if we lose the election in the EC – will get it too.
I similarly have a hard time with the notion that the people of Texas deserve what they’re getting because they elected Abbott, Paxton, etc. (or fill in red state and officials of your choice) because a very large minority voted against them.
Same here. I keep saying he’s the best President of my lifetime, and I mean it. All we can do is make whatever contributions we can make towards winning in November.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: There’s a thing in academic discourse where if you don’t signal that you’ve already considered and weighed every reasonable objection to what you’re saying, and precisely characterized the chance that you are wrong, other academics will conclude you’re wasting their time. It’s important in science particularly.
But that means that a lot of time gets spent on preemptive defense, and to the general public, this kind of talk comes off as either unconfident or actually deceptive (as if you’re covering your ass so you can say something misleading that’s only technically true). Outside of the academy people are more impressed by simple forceful statements and rate those as trustworthy.
Betty Cracker
@Kay:
Damn, I wish you were in charge of explaining this shit to voters because that’s exactly right and easy to grasp. ;-) Don’t opt for the dollar menu, dummies!
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree. You said it better than I did.
As I have said here, I DO think some of the protests were anti-Semitic. I noticed immediately that there was a kind of nasty undercurrent of “you deserve this” right from the get-go. The eagerness to jump on it is a “tell”, I think. So I would have started wth that – “there is a nasty undercurrent …” – but I wouldn’t have vowed to ban certain phrases or punish students for protected speech. That’s a defensible position. They need to defend it. SIMPLY.
catclub
@Soprano2: 2nd of all. University presidents are probably like the US in many ways that they do NOT control everything. Could a univ. pres even throw out a student who had violated some univ speech code? I have my doubts.
My understanding is that a university president is the prime fundraiser. Not much else.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I could weep. Biden’s economic policy is my dream policy.
It’s really turned me off my Lefty-curious nature too. They fucking blew it. They got their FDR but they were too stupid and bad at strategy to see it. I have zero respect for the US Left now. There’s no excuse for them being such morons. They actively harm low and middle income people. They’re bad for them.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
A lot of the left criticism of him seems to mistake “what I would prefer” for “what the public wants” (the old Pundit’s Fallacy).
I would have preferred his response to the Israel-Hamas war to be less pro-Israel, but most people who think this also seem to think that he’s made a fatal political mistake by backing Israel. I don’t think that’s true, I think it’s a lose-lose situation and he’d have lost more votes by not doing that.
Juju
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Soprano2
@Kay: I don’t remember any right wing outrage at all when people were calling for the death of all Muslims after 9-11. Advocating for free speech is hard, because you have to advocate for things that are truly repellent. That’s why so few people actually do it.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: you might be surprised how naive some university administrators can be, in terms of understanding the level of batshittery going on with today’s Republican elected officials.
they also don’t understand that the RWNJs would looooove to take them out and install one of their own. That is a LOT of power and influence + the ability to dispense all kinds of wingnut welfare
Soprano2
@Kay: I see it in people like engineers, too. I had a five minute “discussion” with an engineer about how the co-efficient in a formula was just to account for the roughness of the pipe. He kept saying no, it’s for blah blah blah. After 5 minutes he did admit that yes, in the end it was to account for the roughness of the pipe. I think lots of people are afraid to talk about what they do in a way that demystifies it – they want people to think it’s so complicated that only certain people can understand it. This tendency doesn’t do people any favors. I read that two of the university presidents were prepared by lawyers as well as communications people. They should have thrown the lawyers out and let the communications people only prep them, because they knew they didn’t break any laws. Sorry, I know you’re an attorney, but what I see at the city a lot is that the lawyers will tell you to tie yourself in knots trying not to say anything meaningful. They’re terrified of getting sued, I guess.
Soprano2
@Kay: My husband likes to watch Judge Judy, but mostly I can’t stand her. She tells people “I don’t believe you” with no basis for that other than her gut. We watched one the other night where a woman said her dog used his nose to open a screen door, and Judge Judy said “I don’t believe you”. My husband and I know that a smart dog can open some fence gates and screen doors, so it’s entirely possible the woman was telling the truth, but Judy was certain she wasn’t because she personally doesn’t know of a dog who can do that. She does stuff like that a lot. I think she’s rude and dismissive of people too much for a good judge.
Michael Bersin
@Kay:
In every state the once semi-robust capitol press corps has dwindled down next to nothing.
The small town local newspaper with a reporter in Jefferson City during the legislative session no longer exists.
Instead, Missouri legislators release self-serving weekly reports during the session and the local weekly prints it verbatim.
There’s an unwritten rule that other legislators shouldn’t challenge that propaganda in the offending legislator’s “hometown” newspaper.
That’s not particularly good for accountability or Democracy.
Corporate acquisition and downsizing of local papers just made it worse. “He, let’s cut costs and increase the profit margin by cutting the people who create useful content! What could go wrong?”
JWR
@Betty Cracker:
Re @Kay:
Thanks BC, for saying what I’ve been meaning to say all morning! Kay, you’re a treasure to read.
Michael Bersin
@lowtechcyclist:
It’d be a lot easier if people just bothered to vote. But, that’s asking too much these days.
Kay
@Michael Bersin:
Oh I know. I have to rely on “the capitol reporter” in Ohio which is basically a listserve.
When I was younger and more energetic I would listen to their debates on bills! I can’t imagine doing that now.
Kay
@JWR:
thanks!
Soprano2
@Michael Bersin: I’m not sure the Springfield paper has someone in Jeff City, and we’re the 3rd largest city in Missouri! It’s a travesty what’s happened to local press.
Anyway
@Jeffro:
Exactly – see the recent appointments in universities in FL and OH
cain
lol Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols – I’ve talked to him in person a few times – I’ve also flamed him a few times. He covers a lot of open source stuff as a tech journalist.
Juju
@Betty Cracker: I might suggest a plastic bag…with some duct tape.
Michael Bersin
@Soprano2:
Before the pandemic I’d try to make three trips to Jefferson City during the session. Early on I was granted a press pass in the gallery until someone “complained” – the silence from old media was deafening. Subsequently I was relegated to a side gallery on the floor level. I ended up getting better photos, but it was a little more difficult in the logistics of writing and posting.
Now the capitol press corps is even smaller and they’re getting squeezed out of their traditional turf in the capitol. Such respect, eh?
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Frankly I think it’s more likely that the shoe is going to be on the other foot at some point, if not in 2025 then in 2029 or later. A fascist trifecta is going to control all the branches of the federal government and try to enforce the whole right-wing Christianist wish list by federal law in the blue states, and where I live we are going to be faced with the “nullify or secede” dilemma.
We kind of did that with pot legalization, honestly. Cannabis is still super-duper-illegal by federal edict, a lot of states just decided to ignore that and the feds have more or less voluntarily declined to press the issue too hard.
Michael Bersin
@Soprano2:
We used to engage in social media slap fights with old media reporters (maybe 15 years ago) for their both siderism coverage in Jefferson City. If I recall one such slap fight correctly, we won on points. Ironically, that old media reporter was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his commentary on a meaningful subject a few years ago.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne:
Congrats! Ummmm….I think… 😁🥳
Subsole
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah. Hope they beg for readmittance before the pogroms against vulnerable minorities…
@Kay: In fairness, they did want to go back to the Golden Reaganesque 80s. And it doesn’t get more Reagan than propping up a blood-soaked right-wing nutcase dictator for reasons.
gvg
@Omnes Omnibus: I think his mistake was really trying to sell it afterwards as Peace in our time and pretend that it was anything more than buying time because they weren’t at all ready compared to Germany. I guess he didn’t want to say out loud that they were planning on arming as fast as they could for Hitler to hear, and I’m sure the countries he sold out would hate him regardless, but his infamy is because of what he told his own people afterwards, and the truth in the results.
Another Scott
@Kay:
Cheers,
Scott.
Princess
Speaking as an academic and a full-throated liberal, I think the presidents did a terrible job. They are each paid millions of dollars pretty much exclusively for their ability to convey the worth of their institutions to those outside of them (for donations). The correct response to the question would have been to reframe it (which is Pr 101) and say something like, “if students at our liberal institutions are calling for genocide as a way of solving the problems we have in the world, we have failed in our mission to teach them the values of the liberal arts and we need to take a good hard look at what we’re doing here.” Because they have failed and they do need to. Yes they were targeted because they are women and PoC but they also individually did a bad job.
Kay
@Another Scott:
The problem is the Dem base. They’re often a problem :)
If Biden can improve with Democrats (and people who vote for Democrats but are too cool to be in a political party) he beats Trump easily. He has to do better with Democrats. I think he will – they will “come home” but they haven’t yet and it’s making me nervous.
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
Of course not. I had an epiphany the other day and finally understand the “pro-life” movement. It has one, exactly one, guiding principle which can be summed up as follows:
Eve ate the apple, and that pissed God off so much that He declared that all women should bring forth children in pain. Therefore, the primary purpose of pregnancy is to torture women according to God’s will.
Whether a pregnancy results in a healthy baby with a loving family, an impoverished baby who lives a life of deprivation and misery, or a dead fetus tossed into an incinerator is secondary if not wholly irrelevant to the divinely inspired goal of torturing the mother.
Crap like this is why I never pied Eversor. He’s a prick, but he’s not entirely wrong about Christianity.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
How is he supposed to protect them from the consequences?
Captain C
So if we put a pack of Firefly-style reavers next door to JD Vance, would he be cool with giving them part of his land and house, after they’ve eaten one of his kids and one or two of his (possibly notional) dogs, if they pinky-swear it won’t happen again?
Seriously, the GQP groveling and abasement before Putin (or really, any foreign leader) should be the end of them electorally. Apparently, most of the GQP is fine with being someone else’s puppet as long as they keep getting to kick down on women and minorities.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Why does that necessarily follow?
Captain C
@JWR:
Well, in addition to:
How about we duck tape up JD, Rand Tribblehead, and a few of the others in the Quisling caucus, glue a JDAMS to their head, and give them to the Ukrainian Air Force to drop on a Ruzzian ammo supply dump.
Subsole
@Citizen Alan: Yeah. They had some points, but the 3edgy5you broadbrush kinda detracted from it all.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
I wouldn’t be surprised if she was prosecuted, but, how outrageous
Chris T.
@lowtechcyclist:
You say Vance is a Quisling. I say Quisling was a Vance. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to…
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
Well, Fox News watchers were, at least:
The Daily Show Presents The Top Ten Obama ‘Scandals’ (Frances Langum, 1/03/20)
(The Tan Suit segment is at 11:42 )
Ryan
I mean, why didn’t the US give up on liberating parts of Kuwait in exchange for Saddam Hussein giving up hostilities. Maybe we let that war go too long?