Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

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

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

This blog will pay for itself.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / FL GOP Awash in Flop Sweat

FL GOP Awash in Flop Sweat

by | 192 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

I wasn’t watching because fuck that loser, but according to CNN, Ron DeSantis came out swinging during an Iowa townhall last night. (Alternate theory: the windmilling fists were an attempt to regain his balance and avoid pitching forward off his wedge heels concealed in cowboy boot wrappers.)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday showed new urgency in taking on Donald Trump, attacking the former president at every turn at a CNN town hall in Iowa with the state’s caucuses less than five weeks away…

The economy? Trump “set the stage” for rising inflation, DeSantis said. The border crisis? Trump didn’t complete the wall, and Mexico didn’t pay for it, he said. Abortion? Trump is “flip-flopping on the right to life,” the Florida governor claimed.

He even blamed Trump for the Satanic Temple of Iowa’s display at the state Capitol, a development that has roiled Iowa and triggered a free speech debate. “Lo and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion,” DeSantis said, referring to the Internal Revenue Service granting the group tax-exempt status in 2019.

I’m skeptical of the theory that DeSantis could have buried Trump by attacking him right out of the gate. It’s a cult of personality, not a political party. Republicans want their Trumpy Bear, and therefore they failed to clutch the lumpy, sweaty, rotten pecan-stuffed sock that is Ron DeSantis to their bosom.

What we’re seeing here is desperation and shamelessness, which is also what Casey DeSantis displayed over the weekend by ordering out-of-state “mamas and grandmamas” to “descend on Iowa” and (illegally!) “participate” in the caucuses. The Trump people had some fun with that: (Politico)

Former president Donald Trump seized on an apparent blunder by Casey DeSantis, accusing Florida’s first lady of attempting to “commit organized voter fraud” with her invitation to out-of-state voters to participate in next month’s Iowa caucuses…

“The Trump campaign strongly condemns their dirty and illegal tactics and implores all Trump supporters to be aware of the DeSantises’ openly stated plot to rig the Caucus through fraud,” read the statement, which also called on Iowa governor Kim Reynolds to reaffirm that DeSantis had been mistaken and to clarify the caucus rules.

Trump-aligned Make America Great Again PAC weighed in as well, issuing a statement on “Casey DeSantis’ Embrace of Voter Fraud.”

“Casey DeSantis’ embrace of voter fraud to salvage her husband’s failing campaign is not just wrong, it risks compromising the integrity of the Iowa Caucus,” said spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in the statement.

With any luck, Trump will squash the DeSantii like delicate not-Florida cockroaches, grinding them under the heel of his tiny wingtip so thoroughly that they never dare seek political office again.

Speaking of people who should crawl under the nearest rock, disgraced FL GOP power throuple Christian and Bridget Ziegler are still attempting to ride out their scandal. Bridget sat stone-faced through a Sarasota County School Board meeting last night while every member besides herself voted on a resolution urging her to resign, including her fellow DeSantis-backed culture warriors.

The public also had its say! (Tampa Bay Times)

Speakers from more than a dozen community groups supported the calls for Ziegler’s resignation, saying she had helped create the culture wars nationally and placed Sarasota County at the epicenter.

“Our community is tired of the culture wars and we want it to go away,” said Carol Lerner, a director of the Support Our Schools movement.

The protesters carried signs reading “Bridget Must Go” and “Don’t Say 3-Way.” They handed out T-shirts with the words “Real Women Aren’t Transphobic Bigots,” an apparent reference to a Ziegler social media post that shows her wearing a T-shirt with the words “Real women — aren’t men.”

Bridget the Brazen said the resolution wasn’t binding and noted that members of the other board she sits on, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, didn’t bid her begone. That’s true, but that board isn’t an elected body — DeSantis personally stocked it with egregiously corrupt kooks and sycophants.

Meanwhile, Bridget’s husband, Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, is expected to get the heave-ho when the party’s executive board meets this weekend. (Orlando Sentinel)

Embattled Florida Republican Party chair Christian Ziegler faces a vote on Sunday to remove him from his $120,000 a year job following rape allegations lodged against him and the admission that he and his wife had a three-way affair.

So far he has steadfastly refused to resign even as Gov. Ron DeSantis and most state Republican leaders want him out…

Ziegler could be taking a cue from former President Donald Trump, [University of Miami political science professor Gregory] Koger said, who famously has refused to admit mistakes or wrongdoing. According to NBC News, Ziegler told Moms for Liberty at their convention in July, “Never apologize. Ever. … Apologizing makes you weak.”

But, Koger said, “He’s not Donald Trump.”

Indeed he is not. And unlike the school board, the FL GOP executive board has the power to kick Christian out on his ass.

The weather was weird in Florida over the summer and fall. The east side was deluged with rain, which caused massive floods. Here on the western side of the peninsula, we’re still in a drought, and our river is so low it’s hard to get the boat out sometimes. Maybe all of these creeps could deposit their buckets of flop sweat in the Green Swamp to even things out.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  2. 2.

    SFAW

    Maybe all of these creeps could deposit their buckets of flop sweat themselves in the Green Swamp to even things out.

    Fixed

    ETA: Not first! [Nor frist, for that matter.]

  3. 3.

    MattF

    The writers for this episode should be admonished for naming the villain ‘Christian’. I mean, c’mon guys…

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Would like to know how the audience at the “town hall” (airquotes deliberate) was chosen (read: sifted).

  8. 8.

    Alison Rose

    I hate giving Trump even the tiniest shred of credit for anything, but the other night at some Young Republicans shindig, he made fun of DeSantis’s bobblehead motion he does, and I was like…God damn it, that was true and almost funny.

    Then I bathed in battery acid.

  11. 11.

    Jackie

    I say let Pudd’n Boots win Iowa and let Haley or Christie take New Hampshire. TIFG would scream RIGGED! RIGGED!!! Maybe that would compel him to debate and shit would fly!

    I’m NOT advocating for Pudd’n Boots to win the GQP candidacy, but the media would have a blast! And Biden would just keep Bidening.😁

  13. 13.

    kindness

    Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. (Wilhoit)

    The Zieglers are now shocked to learn they aren’t in the in-group any longer.  Karma works.

  15. 15.

    Tony Jay

    Casey’s Ron clearly lacks the… well… he clearly lacks whatever it takes to be a viable contender for anything more challenging than Chief Bloated Floater in the Backyard Pool of Life, but given how comprehensively he’s failed at being the Not Trump/New Trump candidate, I still say he’d have been better off going balls out and merkin on fire for Trump’s throat from day one and giving the Anti-Trump money a proactive something to get behind.

    Would it have shifted the numbers? Dug into Trump’s MAGA support by offering them more of what they like without the legacy of failure they have to ignore where Orange Loki is concerned? We’ll never know.

    But maybe.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    So we have 5 more weeks of Flailing Ron taking whacks at trumpov about not building the wall AND being an abortion-rights flip-flopper?

    That’s AWESOME!  Go Ron go!  (Just as fast as those lifts in your boots will allow you, anyway).   =)

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    I’m skeptical of the theory that DeSantis could have buried Trump by attacking him right out of the gate.

    The only thing worse than the “horserace” narrative is the prizefight narrative, in which one candidate goes on the superior attack and delivers a magical knockout blow to their opponent.

    Trump had and continues to have an advantage over all challengers. He can do no wrong in the eyes of his base. They will ignore his failures or blame Democrats.

    Knockout punch? You can’t knock sense into the heads of Trump supporters.

    With any luck, Trump will squash the DeSantii like delicate not-Florida cockroaches, grinding them under the heel of his tiny wingtip so thoroughly that they never dare seek political office again.

    Is this the Prisoner’s Dilemma? DeSantis is a self-squashing bug. Trump doesn’t have to do anything to defeat this guy. Unfortunately, DeSantis or somebody like him is the future of the GOP.

    Democrats just have to defeat Trump and get the Congress under control by the Democrats.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    @Tony Jay: [DeSantis] would have been better off going balls out and merkin on fire for Trump’s throat from day one and giving the Anti-Trump money a proactive something to get behind.

    Ay-men.  Can’t beat trump with trump-lite.

    This is what the GOP gets for pretending…for going on seven years now…that trump is magical, wonderful, flawless, and The Chosen One.  If you’re a Republican voter, how could you give that up?

  23. 23.

    azlib

    I love the Satanic Temple folks. Iowa can solve the problem by prohibiting all religious displays in public spaces. It is fun to watch the Christianists fall into their trap and expose their hypocrisy.

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    On another note, I don’t know who might’ve already seen Jamelle Bouie’s column from yesterday, but it’s pretty good on the big picture stuff: Red States and Blue States are Becoming Different Countries.

    (it’s just true)

    Whether we’re talking about reproductive freedom or life expectancy, Red and Blue America are diverging, and you can see it in the data.

    Over the long term, state policies have a measurable impact on life expectancy. Writing for The American Prospect, Paul Starr summarizes the results of a 2020 paper looking at the disparity in life expectancy between the most liberal states and the most conservative states, singling out Connecticut and Oklahoma as two states where policies shifted the most, either to the left or to the right. “Their model,” Starr writes, “indicated that if all states’ policies were the same as Connecticut’s in 2014, U.S. life expectancy would have been two years longer for women and 1.3 years longer for men — and if all states’ policies were like Oklahoma’s, Americans’ lives would have been shorter.”
     
    Americans are often taught to think of the differences between Republicans and Democrats as a set of reasonable disagreements over how to tackle agreed-upon problems. But what we can see, in the divergent agendas of Republican-led states and Democrat-led states, is how the differences have far more to do with the actual purpose of government. For Democrats, that purpose is usually the public good. For Republicans, that purpose is harsh social regulation, with little apparent regard for the lives of those who have to endure these policies.

    I highly recommend the American Prospect article Bouie links to as well; here’s a snippet:

    In a 2020 paper, a team of researchers led by Jennifer Karas Montez assembled annual data from 1970 through 2014 on both life expectancy and state policies in 18 different policy domains, including health, labor, the environment, and taxation. In previous work, one of the collaborating scholars, Jacob M. Grumbach, had shown that state-level policies over that period had polarized on a conservative-to-liberal spectrum.  According to the new Montez study, which controlled for differences in state populations, the polarized shifts in state policy were associated with changes in life expectancy. States that adopted liberal policies were more likely to experience larger gains in life expectancy (and in recent years to avoid an outright decline). Connecticut and Oklahoma were the two states whose policies shifted the most, Connecticut toward the liberal side and Oklahoma toward the conservative side. In 1959, life expectancy in both states was 71.1 years; by 2017, it had increased to 80.7 years in Connecticut but only to 75.8 years in Oklahoma.

     

    …and in a paper published this year analyzing state-level changes in gun regulations and gun mortality from 1991 to 2016, Patrick Sharkey and Megan Kang found “strong, consistent evidence supporting the hypothesis that restrictive state gun policies reduce overall gun deaths,” including both homicides and suicides committed with guns. They used data on nine categories of gun laws to create an index for each state based on the balance between restrictive policies, such as background check requirements, and permissive policies, such as concealed-carry laws. For 2016 alone, they estimated that restrictive policies passed since 1991 averted 4,297 deaths, about 11 percent of the total gun deaths that year.

    “Republican policies will kill ya” fits on a bumper sticker, eh?

  25. 25.

    Paul M Gottlieb

    I don’t think it would have helped Pudding Fingers to attack Trump from the start. It’s not just that there is a personality cult around Trump, but also because DeSantis has such a repellant personality that more early exposure would have sunk his campaign sooner. It’s no coincidence that the DeSantis balloon began to deflate as soon as people were exposed to DeSantis

  26. 26.

    Geminid

    Trump’s challengers all have weaknesses, but there may be another factor contributing to their problems: unlike in 2016 and 2020, Trump has a tight, efficient campaign operation this time around.

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    @Tony Jay:

    The party seems to like SFB. If party “leaders” go after SFB, likely a large number of their voting members will never vote for them again.

    What really gets me is that the conservative public seems to actually like SFB. This is a rather unlikeable human being, so it must be that he’s at least wealthier than they are and would like to be. As has been said before – follow the money. And of course we don’t get the attraction because he actually is, and has been his entire adult life, an absolutely useless asswipe. I can’t believe that the current day rethuglican party is entirely made up of people that think the only way to be someone, get ahead in life, is to cheat about every damn thing, every damn time.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    @Paul M Gottlieb: Excellent point. I’m not sure anyone could have punched Trump out, but DeSantis never had a chance. The only reason he’s governor is because Trump thought he’d be a useful minion in that office and gave him an assist.

  30. 30.

    Anoniminous

    DeSantis never had a chance to beat Trump.  His best strategy would have been to support Trump with everything in his shot locker with the idea of taking over the MAGA movement when Trump croaked.

    As it is he’s done nationally.  His best option is to use his Florida-wide majority to run for Senate where he can stay for the next 30 – 40 years.

  31. 31.

    Kay

    “Our community is tired of the culture wars and we want it to go away,” said Carol Lerner, a director of the Support Our Schools movement.

    You really can beat them. Despite national media like the NYTimes slobbering all over Christopher Rufo, Rufo often tanks when he’s in an actual race (just like DeSantis). The culture war Rightists lose as often as they win. They can get rid of the other culture war grifters on the board too. They just have to organize normal parents who actually support public schools.

  32. 32.

    sdhays

    @Paul M Gottlieb: I think there was a (very generous) 5% chance that someone like DeSantis (not Puddin’ Boots) could have taken down Trump by going negative early on. Very unlikely for all the reasons we know. But still a chance.

    But not taking on Trump is a 0% chance. If you’ve got nothing critical to say about Trump, then why should the voters bother with you? It’s an explicit underpants gnome strategy. Or, basically, “fingers crossed Trump dies and I’m left as the last one standing”.

  33. 33.

    wjca

    @cain: shit that’s how much a principal gets paid here. That chair job can’t be harder than a principal one!

    Yes, but it’s an unprincaled position.

  34. 34.

    Bupalos

    With any luck, Trump will squash the DeSantii like delicate not-Florida cockroaches, grinding them under the heel of his tiny wingtip so thoroughly that they never dare seek political office again

    No thank you. I mean, I’m all for this clown disappearing into the ether, but validating the part of Trumpist fealty that has to do with political fear is…sub optimal. It’s like rooting for Ernst Rohm to get crushed by Hitler.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    One nice thing that has come out of this is national Democrats didn’t run and hide from the media and Republican driven “culture wars” – they didn’t denouce their base.

    Which, besides being the right thing to do turned out to be politically smart, since the political clout of the Right wing culture warriors turns out to have been WAY oversold. They have trouble actually winning elections, although they get many, many media profiles and stories.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    I love how political media made the assumption that the Great Unwashed Masses would reject trans and gay people and diversity initiatives, when actually it was just media and Republicans who freaked out about all that. The Great Unwashed Masses basically shrugged.

    Our media and Republican leaders are much more stodgy and conventional than the local Rotary Club.

  38. 38.

    wjca

    @Jeffro: Red States and Blue States are Becoming Different Countries

    I’m not sure I’m buying this.  At least the core red states, i.e. the ex-Confederacy, have had all those “red stste problems” for decades.  All that’s happening now is a) a few one-time Union states have chosen to join them, and b) a couple of ex-Confederacy states (e.g. Virginia) are showing signs of maybe joining the 21st century.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    I lisened carefully to Casy DeSantis and she actually did call for Floridians to particpate in the Iowa caucuses. She must have believed that it was open to anyone, which is sort of amazingly dumb for a governor’s spouse.

  40. 40.

    Jackie

    What in the world is up with the Wisconsin GQP??? Sheriff Clarke is bats crazy yet he’s blowing up his competition!

    A new Public Policy Polling survey in Wisconsin finds Sheriff David Clarke (R) leading the GOP Senate race with 52%, followed by 7% for Eric Hovde (R) and 6% for Scott Mayer (R).

    Tammy Baldwin must be shaking in her boots //

  42. 42.

    Spider-Dan

    I think there was a window for a Republican challenger to beat Trump by going at him so hard that Trump himself flinches.  Trump’s superpower among the GOP is that he’s shameless (e.g. he’ll happily talk about his penis on a nationally-broadcast debate stage), which gives him an advantage over the respectable politicians in the eyes of the howler monkeys.  The only way to beat him in the primary would have been to go after him as a failure, personally and professionally.  Just as Trump held no punches attacking Dubya, McCain, etc., the person who dethrones him in the GOP must do the same.

    That said, Ron DeSantis was never the man for this task.  The problem is that like most of the GOP, DeSantis is a coward.  If the opponent is not a gay child, a trans woman, or a black ex-con, DeSantis isn’t interested in taking them on.  Tiny D (which more and more people are calling him, I hear) punches down, not up.

  43. 43.

    wjca

    @Kay: She must have believed that it was open to anyone, which is sort of amazingly dumb for a governor’s spouse brain.

    Fixed that for you.  (If she wasn’t a dutifully submissive/supportive reactionary wife, she’d have been the one running for governor.)

  44. 44.

    Alison Rose

    @Kay: But think of how dumb you have to be to willingly tie yourself and your life to DeSantis. Like, “Yes, I definitely want to help this man pass on his genes”. Casey isn’t due for a Mensa call any time soon.

  47. 47.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Jackie: Isn’t that the guy who covered his uniform with fake medals which turned out to be shit from cereal boxes and discarded Boy Scout awards?

  48. 48.

    Old School

    @Jackie:

    What in the world is up with the Wisconsin GQP??? Sheriff Clarke is bats crazy yet he’s blowing up his competition!

    Probably name recognition at this point, but I thought David Clarke was officially a Democrat.  Did he change parties?

  50. 50.

    cursorial

    And unlike the school board, the FL GOP executive board has the power to kick Christian out on his ass

    Aww, I was hoping they could both dig their heels in and refuse to go quietly. Long enough to start referring to them as the Florida GOP’s power threesome.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    Might have missed this yesterday.

     

    RIP Andre Braugher.

    Gone entirely too soon.

    I will say with my entire chest and go 10 toes down

    Frank Pembleton was the best Black character ever written for television. His complexity. Lord. I could write a thesis on that character and his place as a Black person in America.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    Where is Suzanne?

    This is a panel of unattractive Right wing men discussing Taylor Swift’s “eggs”:

    ask_aubry

    Why is Charlie Kirk obsessed with Taylor Swift’s eggs?

    None of these repulsive men will ever get anywhere near Taylor Swift, let alone her eggs.

  56. 56.

    RaflW

    OK, as political theater “Don’t Say 3-Way” is fantastic.

    As a libertine liberal, it’s not my personal position to say folks need to conform to paired monogamy. But that is a damn funny slogan for going after the don’t say gay lady. (It was interesting to note that at least one report on the whole sordid rape charge said that the third person ‘was in it for Bridget’. Huh, sounds like the lover was maybe a Kinsey 4 or so, and so that begs the question for Ms. Z, too.)

  57. 57.

    Citizen Alan

    @rikyrah: While that’s certainly true, it absolutely astonishes me to contemplate the fact that Frank Pembleton and Capt. Ray Holt could be played by the same actor. It’s a testament to Braugher’s incredible skill that he could go from such an intense dramatic role to playing the single funniest character in a large and talented ensemble cast and, dare I say it, one of the funniest characters in any sitcom of the last 20 years at least.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah:

    Frank Pembleton was the best Black character ever written for television. His complexity. Lord. I could write a thesis on that character and his place as a Black person in America.

    How about you say it in a guest post?  I would love to read that.

  59. 59.

    eclare

    @Kay:

    Holy shit!  Those men are disgusting.

    And “no one likes her”?  Her Eras tour grossed 1B.  So yeah, no one likes her.

  60. 60.

    Skippy-san

    Really surprised that DeSantis has not been caught out on his stolen valor of wearing a Bronze Star he never earned.  It’s a great example of both how much of a liar DeSantis is and why, once people get to see him in person they understand what a worthless dick he is.

  61. 61.

    Brachiator

    Ziegler could be taking a cue from former President Donald Trump, [University of Miami political science professor Gregory] Koger said, who famously has refused to admit mistakes or wrongdoing. According to NBC News, Ziegler told Moms for Liberty at their convention in July, “Never apologize. Ever. … Apologizing makes you weak.”

    Wow. Not even the traditional “I prayed and the baby Jesus forgave me” feint.

    These people are truly shameless.

  62. 62.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Where is Suzanne?

    This is a panel of unattractive Right wing men discussing Taylor Swift’s “eggs”:

     

    They are mad that Taylor controls her eggs. That’s what bothers them the most.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I listened carefully to Casy DeSantis and she actually did call for Floridians to particpate in the Iowa caucuses

     

    She absolutely thought that you could bus in anyone to vote in the IOWA Caucus. She sure did. She didn’t hesitate when she told those mother and grandmothers to come to Iowa.

  66. 66.

    Brachiator

    @Spider-Dan:

    I think there was a window for a Republican challenger to beat Trump by going at him so hard that Trump himself flinches.

    Trump doesn’t flinch. And for now, his base will never desert him. Chris Christie regularly pounds on Trump, points out his failures and still gets booed by the MAGA rabble.

    Biden mocked Trump, but mainly ignored him and dismissed his lunacy. Biden focused on Democrats and sane swing voters.

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @Alison Rose:

    he made fun of DeSantis’s bobblehead motion he does, and I was like…God damn it, that was true and almost funny. 

    Oh God, he was sooooo good at those nicknames.”Low-Energy Jeb” and “Lyin’ Ted” and “Li’il Marco”. He hit the nail on the head every fucken time. It’s part of his appeal….. being a mean asshole.

  70. 70.

    Shalimar

    There was someone who lost her law license after 1986 for doing what Casey DeSantis did here.  Charlie Graddick, the Alabama Attorney General at the time (and unfortunately my godmother’s brother, so he was semi-family) was running for Governor and there was a Democratic primary run-off where his campaign urged Republicans to cross over and vote for him, which was against Alabama law.  He was never punished for it, but his assistant and secretary took the blame.

  71. 71.

    RaflW

    @Jeffro: Part of what is so appalling about this is that most people in Oklahoma will not learn about this study or the five year life penalty they’re paying in their quest for social control. Yes, some of them might not even care if they knew. But they’ve self-selecting into a knowledge vacuum as well.

    We lived in Tulsa for 22 months, 1975-77, and it was a very pleasant town (not knowing one iota about the horrendous “Black Wall Street” massacre back then). We attended a large UU congregation with plenty of thoughtful people. My elementary teachers did not set me back scholastically when we moved back to more competitive NE of the country, and was at least a bit racially diverse. Our neighborhood was probably conservative, but not nutso. Sad how shitty that state has trended/rebounded to.

  72. 72.

    wjca

    @Jeffro: read the article.  It’s not about states flipping ‘red’ or ‘blue’.

    I got that.  My point was that the “red states” being worse on multiple counts isn’t a new phenomena.  The part of my comment about states flipping was merely acknowledging the occasional exceptions to the historical split.

  73. 73.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: I’m here!

    LMAO, you know I’m right! They want all of us — especially the successful, attractive white women — back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant!

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    If any of y’all missed Anne Laurie’s post about Casey DeSantis urging people nationwide to “descend upon Iowa,” here’s a link. On that same program, she accused Nikki Haley of being in favor of transition surgery for minors too. She sounded really angry and clipped. I love it!

  78. 78.

    Suzanne

    @eclare:

    And “no one likes her”?  Her Eras tour grossed 1B.  So yeah, no one likes her. 

    No one likes her except for women, and gay dudes, both of whose are only person-ish. Apparently.

    Straight white dudes are losing cultural and consumer influence…. And LORT is it funny.

  82. 82.

    Old School

    @RaflW:

    A quick search shows a 2017 headline that calls him The Black Democrat Who Works for Trump’s PAC.

    So, words have no meaning, I guess?

    He was sheriff of Milwaukee County, so he ran as a Democrat.  I don’t believe a candidate ever ran as a Republican.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    I think she’s a particular threat because she’s tall. Taller than Ron DeSantis even with his cowboy lifts. But Kelce must be a giant because she has to reach quite a ways up to him.

  84. 84.

    smith

    @rikyrah: She absolutely thought that you could bus in anyone to vote in the IOWA Caucus

    It’s a long-standing myth in the RW, predating TFG, that Dems do this with illegal immigrants and other undesirables, so it’s become an article of faith among the Goobers that they would be justified in doing it too. Southern-fried Lady Macbeth is just stupid enough to say it out loud.

  85. 85.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: I’m sure it would be elitist of me to note that every one of those men looks like dogshit, and that they should learn how to dress, learn grooming, and go to the gym.

    So I won’t say it.

  86. 86.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    Apologizing makes you weak.

    Channeling the execrable John Wayne.

    That stuck out to me too. I hope he doesn’t have children. That can do a lot of damage. Sincerely apologizing for mistakes made is apart of being a functioning adult. Not apologizing makes someone an asshole who can’t/won’t admit fault

  88. 88.

    Martin

    California Legislative Advent Calendar Day 13:

    SB 616: Increases sick time benefits for all full and part-time California workers from three days to a minimum of five paid sick days a year. Both hourly and salaried employees qualify.

  89. 89.

    Anoniminous

    Speaking of candidate’s wives … what happened to Trump’s wife … what’shername …. Melanoma?

  91. 91.

    Jackie

    For anyone interested, MSNBC is covering the House Biden Impeachment Inquiry Vote. So far it’s pretty feisty!

  93. 93.

    rikyrah

    @eclare:

    And “no one likes her”?  Her Eras tour grossed 1B.  So yeah, no one likes her

     

    The two biggest tours of the year were Taylor Swift and Beyonce.

     

    Yeah, those dudes are losing their minds.

    Even though, family-wise, Beyonce is pretty conservative.

    Married mother of three.

    She allowed Blue Ivy to dance, but, the outfits were very age appropriate, as was the choreography.

  94. 94.

    Anoniminous

    And in other news …

    Tesla is recalling nearly all 2 million of its cars on US roads to limit use of its Autopilot feature

  96. 96.

    Jeffro

    @wjca: well, the article noted several examples of relatively recent divergence in health- and longetivity-related outcomes between states.

    I mostly agree with what you’re adding to the conversation here; I’m just noting that the piece was about examples of ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states that were relatively close in terms of outcomes up until recent decades, when their legislatures went all-red or all-blue, and that started having real-world impacts.

    One alternate way that the author could have put it: the ‘blue’ states got healthier, faster, than the ones with ‘red’ policies.  It’s not just about ‘red’ states being unhealthy…

  98. 98.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Spider-Dan:

    All pretty much my viewpoint.  Add that DeSantis was the best thing that ever happened to Trump, other than being born rich.  Trump was covered in loser stink, then DeSantis asked to be a punching bag so Trump could look like a bully again.

  99. 99.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Anoniminous: and @rikyrah:

    Okay, but let’s be clear:  This isn’t a recall of the ‘you have to bring the car back’ style.  This is removing or otherwise radically altering the self-driving and driver assist programming, which will be done remotely.  It’s still an admission that the self-driving car wasn’t, and people died because of that.

  101. 101.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Jeffro: A very stark example is the states that refused the Medicaid expansion (all red, I think).  Legislatures thought it would only affect the poor, about whom they don’t give a tin-plated shit, but in their ignorant anti-Enlightenment glory they didn’t consider that contagious diseases (COVID, anybody?) don’t care what your income is.

  102. 102.

    p.a.

    Among a certain group, some of the Taylor Swift hate dates back to when she moved on from country music.  A lot of early fans changed with her, but not all.

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @rikyrah: Women making their own money — and spending it — led to Taylor and Beyoncé absolutely dominating this year. That degree of influence has caused quite the freakout!

    I worked in marketing and advertising in the early 2000s, and there was this widespread idea at that time that young men aged approximately 18-30 was this massively untapped market. That they had lots of money that they were dying to spend, and that they would do so if a company took the time/effort to communicate directly to them. (I have no idea why anyone thought this…. I was dating dudes in that age range at that time, and all of them had multiple-roommate situations.) But anyway. That led to a lot of shit like “The Man Show” and adult cartoons with that gross wink-wink-nudge-nudge humor that absolutely blew up after the success of “South Park”. And radio formats became incredibly dude-centered because they were all grossed out by the Lilith Fair energy of the 90s. So now those same dudes are older, and they never had much money to begin with (as a cohort), and companies are now much more willing to chase young women consumers. The absolute temper tantrum is really something to behold.

  105. 105.

    Spider-Dan

    @Brachiator: ​Christie attacks Trump in the same respectable politics way as any other Republican on any other debate stage in the last 40 years. I’m talking about the kind of out-of-bounds attacks that will have media talking heads clutching their pearls about The Crass Level of Discourse. None of the current cowards would get on a stage and mention that Trump cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star who later said that his penis is tiny, and continue escalating from there if Trump tries to clap back. That’s the kind of approach it would take to defeat Trump in today’s GOP.

  107. 107.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Frank Pembleton was the best Black character ever written for television. His complexity. Lord. I could write a thesis on that character and his place as a Black person in America.

    I absolutely agree with you on this point. I honestly don’t know how the writers avoided some of the cliches and lame tropes that sometimes undermine black, nonwhite and women protagonists.

    I also noted this in a previous post.

    I think that Sherlock Holmes, Frank Pembleton, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison and spymaster George Smiley are my favorite sleuths, because of their furious intelligence and depth of character.

    I will throw in that Luther Mahoney, played by Erik Dellums, was one of the best villains ever on TV. “Homicide” had a great supporting cast and knew how to develop their stories and characterizations.

    ETA. I will note that I have not seen all episodes of The Wire, which also has a great cast of characters.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I couldn’t bear to listen, but I assume you mean Charlie Kirk because WTF is wrong with his face? It’s way too small for his head! It’s like someone used a lasso tool to shrink it down, only it’s real, not photoshop…

  109. 109.

    mrmoshpotato

    “The Trump campaign strongly condemns their dirty and illegal tactics and implores all Trump supporters to be aware of the DeSantises’ openly stated plot to rig the Caucus through fraud,”

    This is so, so rich coming from the fascist shitstain.

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    @Spider-Dan:

    None of the current cowards would get on a stage and mention that Trump cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star who later said that his penis is tiny, and continue escalating from there if Trump tries to clap back.

    Nobody cares about this stuff. Let me be blunt. I will bet you that many MAGA supporters agree with Trump when he talks about grabbing women by their genitals. Trump is acting out their fantasies. Banging a porn star? No problem. Even the evangelicals believe that Trump was sent by God, who also has apparently pre-approved all of Trump’s sins.

    Also, even though these exposures get to Trump, his infantile personality defense mechanisms kick into overdrive when he is attacked. Trump is mentally ill. And in his delusional world he is “perfect.” You can’t fight crazy.

    He is stung by personal attacks, but this only makes him fight back harder. Even when he is defeated, he just retreats more deeply into his delusions.

    But again, Trump is not Superman. He is best defeated when you go around him, ignore him, refuse to give him the stage. You even start to peel away supporters who are not zealots.

    He is a tired and feeble fool, who is sustained only because he is propped up by his base and by a servile GOP leadership.

  113. 113.

    Sister Golden Bear

    This made my morning: FCC Won’t Reinstate $900M Subsidy For Musk’s SpaceX

    The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday reaffirmed its 2022 decision to deny SpaceX satellite internet unit Starlink $885.5 million in rural broadband subsidies.

    The FCC said the decision impacting Elon Musk’s space company was based on Starlink’s failure to meet basic program requirements and that Starlink could not demonstrate it could deliver promised service after SpaceX had challenged the 2022 decision.

    The FCC cited among its reasons SpaceX’s failure to successfully launch its Starship rocket, saying “the uncertain nature of Starship’s future launches could impact Starlink’s ability to meet” its obligations.

    Maybe blowing up your rocket launchpad wasn’t a masterful gambit after all.

  116. 116.

    cain

    @rikyrah: The woman knows how exploitative that industry is. Having a mother like that is a blessing. Although, probably not what Ivy thinks. :)

  119. 119.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @smith: It’s a particularly stupid lie about the Iowa caucuses where you participate in the one in your precinct. The location varies year to year. One time we were in a middle school cafeteria. The next time, we were in the UAW hall. The newspaper publishes a long list of places each time.

    Because it’s by precinct, the other people there are your neighbors. You can look across the room and see the guy who lives down the street raising his hand for someone else. Strangers stand out

  121. 121.

    JaySinWA

    @Harrison Wesley:

    Legislatures thought it would only affect the poor, about whom they don’t give a tin-plated shit, but in their ignorant anti-Enlightenment glory they didn’t consider that contagious diseases (COVID, anybody?) don’t care what your income is.

    While this is true, I haven’t seen anything about the studies that adjust for poverty. The policies may well have impacted the lifespan of poor people far more adversely than that of people with better resources.

    Some collateral damage isn’t a show stopper for this group.

  122. 122.

    Captain C

    @Brachiator: I think the business failure line of attack may have some success as well.  I’m still baffled that no one, either in 2015-16 or now, is really going after him on his many bankruptcies and business failures, including three bankrupt casinos (before Indian gaming took off) and running an entire football league into the ground.  Perhaps using a slogan like:  “This is America.  If you can’t make money on football and gambling, you are a truly shitty poor businessman.”

  123. 123.

    Scout211

    Apologies if this has already been posted and discussed.  Trump’s team is not having Jack Smith’s request for an early review of the Presidential Immunity issue.

    Trump Tries to Slow Down Appeals Court Review on ‘Presidential Immunity’

    Trump’s lawyers took issue with that plan in their Wednesday filing, saying it would blow up their end-of-year holiday plans.

    “This proposed schedule would require attorneys and support staff to work round-the-clock through the holidays, inevitably disrupting family and travel plans,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “It is as if the Special Counsel ‘growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming. … But how?’”

    The former president’s legal team in Wednesday’s filing proposed a timetable in which Trump would have 40 days to file an initial brief, 21 days to file a reply brief, and 45 days to prepare for oral argument.

  124. 124.

    Soprano2

    @Ruckus: These people like that TFG is that way. They think he’s “naughty”, and kind of giggle about it when they talk about it. They believe that everything is already corrupt and stacked against them – the government, business, the schools, everything – so when they think he’s “scoring a point” against these entities, they applaud because it makes them feel good. “See, he stood up to that corrupt government and won!” is how they think about it. Every time he makes a liberal mad, they feel they’ve won another point. If he overvalued his properties, well it’s the stupid people and bank’s own fault they didn’t realize it, shows how dumb and corrupt they are. And on and on.

  125. 125.

    smith

    @JaySinWA: One big item of collateral damage they somehow overlooked is hospitals going broke and closing, especially in small town/rural areas. That’s their most devoted base. The quiet creep of some red states into the Medicaid expansion tent (I think NC is the latest) shows there might be a limit to how much abuse the base is willing to bear just to own the libs.

  126. 126.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @Brachiator:

    But again, Trump is not Superman. He is best defeated when you go around him, ignore him, refuse to give him the stage. You even start to peel away supporters who are not zealots.

    No one understands this better than Joe Biden. He shows casual contempt for Trump (The Former Guy) and goes back to talking to the adults.

  127. 127.

    Captain C

    @Scout211: No one (that I know of) forced them to take this job.  I’m hoping for some exquisite legalese to the effect of:  “You can either do this in the accelerated timetable or you can just not reply and suck it up and accept the results.”

  128. 128.

    JaySinWA

    @Anoniminous:

     

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    This strikes me as a failure. For all its faults, I think Starlink had the best chance to provide high speed internet to rural areas quickly. There are only limited success stories for rural high speed internet. Starlink should have been one of them.

    Of course Starlink didn’t deliver and cutting off subsidies to companies that don’t deliver is healthy, but I can’t find much to cheer about here.

  129. 129.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Suzanne: I’m a guy. I’ll say it. They look like old laundry, and that’s the strongest point in their favor.

    They are sitting there acting like a bunch of junior high mean girls, and it is pathetically transparent cope-and-seethe.

    It’s even funnier when you recall that when Ms. Swift first erupted into fame, they were all worshipping her as a living icon of the bubbly blonde trad-wife they all want to force every woman to be.

    Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but these snippy little goons are certainly in the running.

  131. 131.

    Scout211

    @Captain C: True.  But don’t you just love their legal argument?  He’s a mean one, Mr. Grinch Mr. Smith!

    IANAL, but that filing seems, well, a little weird?

  134. 134.

    Captain C

    @Scout211: Weird, and like a failed high school debator well into the pounding the table stage, hoping his “you’re all meanies” arguments will somehow sway the judge after his facts proved bunk, he broke the rules, and punched the opponent.

  135. 135.

    smith

    @Scout211: This is one of the “tells” that shows they don’t think they will win this appeal. If they did win, it would all be over, not just the DC trial, but all the criminal trials against him. He would save massive amounts of money, time and trouble — if they thought that would really happen, why ask for a delay?

    The other tell is the timing of this appeal  — they chose to make it just before the holidays and very close to the start of the DC trial. If they believed their own arguments, they would have filed this appeal the instant the first criminal indictment dropped and saved tens of millions of dollars and all the time spent on defense all over the country. Instead they saved it up until a dragged out appeal process would delay or even temporarily halt not just this trial, but all of them. Jack Smith saw what they were up to –probably anticipated it from the beginning –and called their bluff.

  136. 136.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @eclare: But a lot of those fans are women! Young women at that, which that not only are they ignorant & in need of wise manly guidance from wise many men, they’re extra-ignorant because they keep rejecting wise many men like Charlie Kirk et al. right, left, front, back and sideways. So their opinion is worthless. Worthless, I tell you, why it is an offense to God and Man that such ignorant little sluts should even think themselves entitled to opinions of their own.

    Did I get the tone right? I always worry I might be overdoing it.

  137. 137.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Spanky:

    6′ 5″? Hah!

    He is tiny, like small baby!

    Subsole laughs at him, like a strong mountain. He laughs from the tower of his superior height.

  138. 138.

    Captain C

    @smith:

    saved tens of millions of dollars

    I don’t think Trump’s lawyers have any incentive to do this, provided they have an ironclad way of getting paid.

  139. 139.

    scav

    @Scout211: Horrors!  They have to get a sitter!  On a school night!  During the holidays! They don’t earn the massively big bucks to endure that kind of slavery!

  142. 142.

    smith

    @Captain C: The lawyers may not care, but TFG certainly does. It’s hard to tell what he values more, his money or personal adulation. And given some of the whackadoodle motions his lawyers make, it’s obvious who is calling the shots.

  143. 143.

    Captain C

    @scav: I wonder how many of them were the rich college kid, not even doing enough to earn a gentleman’s C, threatening the professor and indeed the deans and college president that “my dad will stop donating millions if you don’t give me an extension until April for all the work that’s due this week, as well as the work that was already due that I haven’t turned in!”

  145. 145.

    Old School

    @Scout211:

    Trump’s lawyers took issue with that plan in their Wednesday filing, saying it would blow up their end-of-year holiday plans.

    If that works, it’ll throw off their MLK Jr. plans, Valentines Day, Presidents Day, Easter, Tax Day, Memorial Day, etc.

  146. 146.

    JaySinWA

    @smith: Yes, while hospital consolidation leaving large areas under served is a national problem,it impacts places without medicare expansion more.

    Even basic public health issues like EMT’s and primary care are failing in much of less-urban America, particularly in red states. PBS has been doing reporting on health care and public safety shortages in Iowa and other areas.

    The people interviewed in those areas blame government in general.

  149. 149.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Jeffro:
    Thanks! interesting!
    Mike Podhorzer, former AFL-CIO political director had a 2 nations piece about a week ago:
    https://www.weekendreading.net/p/the-two-nations-of-america?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

    I’ve mentioned Podhorzer before, noting he coined the phrase “margin of effort.”
    i hope to have some useful information soon on overlapping elections within the margin of effort up and down the ballot, aka super swing districts.

  150. 150.

    WhatsMyNym

    @JaySinWA:   We’re now getting subsidies for the electric company to put fiber into the rural areas where they are already supplying power (Jefferson PUD in WA).

  152. 152.

    Brachiator

    @Captain C:

    I think the business failure line of attack may have some success as well.

    Trump is a former president. He is not running on his past success or failure as a businessman.

    His connection to his base is personal and emotional. The people who understand that he is a fraud have already moved on.

    But it may be good to hammer home these points even though they may not have a huge impact. It still chips away at his reputation.

  154. 154.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Suzanne:

    They want all of us — especially the successful, attractive white women — back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant!

    I’m not doubting this viewpoint but a lot of these RW douchebags are in the 30-50 y.o. range and the percentage of working mothers has steadily increased from around 50% in the 60’s to almost three quarters today. So the barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen meme is not really their lived experience. My mother was a stay at home in the 60’s but only her eldest daughter stayed at home (until the divorce anyway).

    They don’t advocate for any policy that would enable mothers to have the choice. They don’t respect the work of women inside the home as work.

  155. 155.

    Timill

    @JaySinWA: Summat’s off here: from the linked article:

    The two Republican commissioners on the five-member FCC dissented from the decision saying the FCC was improperly holding SpaceX to 2025 targets three years early

    Plus Starlink doesn’t launch on Starship, so what’s the relevance?

  156. 156.

    Nelle

    OT:  Sometimes it is sort of hilarious.  Someone tried to do some sort of fraud on husband’s PayPal account.  In trying to remedy that, PayPal inadvertently put $20,000 in my husband’s account.  A lot of scurrying around going on as they try to remedy that.  I told him to give them his billable hourly rate as expert witness.  Phooey on it all, all this internet business.  I want my old bank passbook back.  Time for another Covid nap.  Hummphh.

  157. 157.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    Christie is one Republican, maybe the only Republican, who can dish out to Trump better than Trump can retaliate.

    But Christie and Romney also kissed Trump’s ass when the Orange Menace first ran for president, and after he won.

    And Trump won’t let them forget it.

  158. 158.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    Jeez, they can’t even quote Dr. Seuss correctly.

     ‘growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming. … But how?’”

    No, it’s “growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming.'”

    Then several pages later, after the descriptions of all the things the Grinch detests about Christmas down in Who-Ville (not to be confused with Hoo-Ville, aka Charlottesville, Virginia ;-), the Grinch says, “I MUST stop this Christmas from coming! …But HOW?”

    Aside from capitalization and italics, there’s no ‘keep’ in either place, so it’s not even eliding the two accurately.

  160. 160.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @eclare: Thanks. The contempt for women, and especially for young women is just a constant theme with these churls.

  161. 161.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Sure Lurkalot: ​
     

    Years ago, Amanda Marcotte was one of the first to succinctly articulate the real reason behind the forced birther movement and that was exactly to keep women barefoot, pregnant, chained to the bed with just enough slack to get to the kitchen.
    Her point was how women in the workforce was a liberating and democratizing move…which threatened a white, male dominated political landscape.

    Thus, these 30-50 y.o. RWNJs might not have grown up that way but it’s a political concept they’ve grown up with. Just like gutting public education, a dumber populace is easier to control. And if you knock a crapton of women out of the equation, well, once less variable to deal with when trying to get elected and hold onto power.

    I really wish I could find her old Pandagon post. Somebody here tried to find it via the Internet Archive but couldn’t.

  162. 162.

    Spider-Dan

    @Brachiator:

    But again, Trump is not Superman. He is best defeated when you go around him, ignore him, refuse to give him the stage. You even start to peel away supporters who are not zealots.

    You are describing the strategy the GOP tried in 2016 and is trying today.  This might work in the general, but it Does. Not. Work. in the GOP primary.  Any challenger will have to take him head on.

    When you say “nobody cares” about the porn star penis insults or various other unsubstantive digs, you’re missing the point.  The GOP is ruled by dominance politics; nearly all the policies are secondary (outside of a baseline commitment to white supremacy).  The whole point of attacking Trump about Stormy Daniels is for him to attack back… and then you attack back harder.  You attack him for being rolled by Nancy Pelosi, for letting immigrants into the country, for getting vaccinated, for letting the election be stolen from him while he was President, for allowing Mike Pence to call in the National Guard on January 6, for being humiliated by these black female DAs. That’s what dominance politics is; that’s why Trump has easily crushed all GOP challengers.

    And the current crop of cowards don’t have the stones for that kind of conflict.  Because when you play that game of thrones, you win or you (professionally) die, and they don’t want to risk dying.  They’d rather sit back and collect their wingnut welfare after losing.​

  163. 163.

    Suzanne

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    So the barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen meme is not really their lived experience. My mother was a stay at home in the 60’s but only her eldest daughter stayed at home (until the divorce anyway).

    They don’t advocate for any policy that would enable mothers to have the choice. They don’t respect the work of women inside the home as work.
     

    Oh, agreed. It’s a cultural memory.

    I will note that I was born in 1980 and my mom worked (because she was divorced and in the 1980s, if you didn’t want to pay child support, you could sever your parental rights and be off the hook, so she never got a dime from my father). But most of my friends’ moms didn’t work, and I lived in very-working-class-at-best surroundings.

    You’re right that they don’t consider homemaking to be real work. What they like about it is that it puts women under the financial control of their husbands, so they’re less likely to leave. It’s not that they’re genuinely concerned about women having choices or dignity.

  164. 164.

    Brachiator

    @smith:

    One big item of collateral damage they somehow overlooked is hospitals going broke and closing, especially in small town/rural areas. That’s their most devoted base. The quiet creep of some red states into the Medicaid expansion tent (I think NC is the latest) shows there might be a limit to how much abuse the base is willing to bear just to own the libs.

    Excellent point. The Republicans try to sell the lie that the Democrats only care about black people and illegal immigrants. But the Democrats need to continue to hammer home the point that their health care policies help everyone. The GOP either tries to fight these efforts or take false credit for them.

  165. 165.

    Gvg

    @RaflW: I lived in Tulsa too about then and we attended UU. You may have met my parents. I was in 2nd and 3rd grade. I sometimes wonder what happened and what changed. Dad never liked snow and when the job market improved we went back to Florida.

  166. 166.

    Kay

    We’ve talked here about how homeschooling is completely unregulated. THis has become a big issue in Michigan because of a horrendous child abuse case where the abusers were able to conceal the abuse because they “homeschooled” the children:

    Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and a Democratic state lawmaker are calling for more state oversight into homeschooling following recent reports of child abuse where officials say homeschool helped conceal mistreatment by caregivers.
    Michigan has virtually no requirements to make sure homeschooled children are really receiving an education. Advocates for the education method say parents should not have to be held accountable by the government for making decisions about their own children. But a case out of Clinton County announced Monday by Nessel highlights why some requirements should be in place, she said.
    At school, officials can sometimes spot when a child faces abuse at home. In the Clinton County case, Nessel’s office charged two couples — Jerry and Tamal Flore and Tammy and Joel Brown — in what is described as a conspiracy to financially profit from adopting nearly 30 children, some of whom they are accused of abusing.

    Now there’s another horrendous MI case where a 15 year old special needs boy was starved to death by his mother – she was investigated for child abuse in Oklahoma when the boy was 5 – his school reported it. She lost custody of the child in Oklahoma as a result of the abuse and somehow ended up back caring for him, and in Michigan, ten years later. He hasn’t been in school in ten years. She’s charged with murder.

  167. 167.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Geminid:

    “El Caudildo”
    (text quote box fail)

    Ha! An excellent challenge for my dyslexia.

    You may recall a 2020 Politico article titled
    “Biden the ‘Socialist’ vs. Trump the ‘Caudillo.'”
    Miami Herald had an article in April headlined
    “DeSantis as possible president looks like a caudillo”
    But your comment is next level.

    TFG and DeSaster: The Dueling Caudildos?
    (The Dueling Caudildos is now a musical !)

  170. 170.

    wjca

    @trollhattan: Christie is one Republican, maybe the only Republican, who can dish out to Trump better than Trump can retaliate.

    TIFG doesn’t seem to attack Christie with anywhere near the frequency and enthusiasm he takes on others who attack him.  Of course, I suppose that could be a matter of Christie not being seen as a threat.  But the trouble with that theory is that not being a real threat doesn’t seem to be a factor in other attacks.

    So maybe it’s like his relationship with Putin: he doesn’t go after anyone who is a rwal tough guy, compared to his faux tough guy facade.

  171. 171.

    Brachiator

    @Spider-Dan:

    RE: But again, Trump is not Superman. He is best defeated when you go around him, ignore him, refuse to give him the stage. You even start to peel away supporters who are not zealots.

    You are describing the strategy the GOP tried in 2016 and is trying today.  This might work in the general, but it Does. Not. Work. in the GOP primary.  Any challenger will have to take him head on.

    Hmmm. What worked for Biden in the 2020 general election will not work in the GOP primary. Because… Reasons. Okay.

    Trump skipped the debates. Chris Christie’s best shots have not moved the needle in the polls.

    Trump is still leading. His challengers have to do something once the primaries begin. We will see what happens.

    The whole point of attacking Trump about Stormy Daniels is for him to attack back… and then you attack back harder.

    This is, I think, where you don’t get it. If you “Attack back harder,” you are still on Trump’s favored turf. He loves fighting dirty. He is energized by the fight, because his fragile infantile ego hates, and fears, being a loser. His delusions and power of denial is his greatest shield.

    I would love to see one of his challengers take him down. But again, I think that you have to get to him indirectly, some place where he doesn’t anticipate an attack.

  173. 173.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @Brachiator:

    Hmmm. What worked for Biden in the 2020 general election will not work in the GOP primary. Because… Reasons. Okay.

    Because the GOP base are assholes. Biden appealed to non-assholes.

  179. 179.

    Paul in KY

    @Tony Jay: Hiddleston played Henry V on recent series of Shakespeare’s plays. I was sorta bummed that he sported a beard and didn’t have that scar on right side of face that everyone who met Henry V said he had (from an arrow wound received in Wales). He did a great job as young Hal (I thought), but not as good (IMO) as King Henry. They also botched the hanging of his old buddies scene, I thought.

  180. 180.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: THE Capt. Frank Holt character was a challenge for him.  A challenge he sought.  There are some straight actors who I love playing gay.  He’s high on the list of actors who wanted to live in the skin of people whose lives were different than theirs.  It felt like he relished expanding his universe.

    And he might have learned some things from Stanford and Juilliard.

  181. 181.

    evodevo

    @Old School: He kept claiming he was a Dem, but refused to actually join the party, and also kept standing with the Repubs on issue after issue, besides doing the “sovereign” thingy…so….

  187. 187.

    wjca

    @Brachiator:  If you “Attack back harder,” you are still on Trump’s favored turf. He loves fighting dirty. He is energized by the fight, because his fragile infantile ego hates, and fears, being a loser. His delusions and power of denial is his greatest shield.

    I would love to see one of his challengers take him down. But again, I think that you have to get to him indirectly, some place where he doesn’t anticipate an attack.

    I suspect that the “attack” that would work best is for one (or more) of his primary opponents, when asked about him, to respond: “That loser? Ask me about Biden or someone serious.”

    Being referred to off-handedly as “that loser” would send him into a meltdown.  He’d lash out, of course.  But if all he got was the attacker continuing to treat him as too insignificant to matter, it would drive him totally crazy.

  189. 189.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Kay:  Pretty much ALL NFL players are huge compared to normal men. Kelce is a tight end and 6’5″, so yeah, he’s a giant. When watching a football game and some player(s) are standing next to a Ref or two (who are sized like normal human men), the players are always at least a head taller (not to mention broader).

  190. 190.

    Spider-Dan

    @Brachiator: ​ As was mentioned by another, the GOP primary selects for assholes. Chris Christie’s “best shots” are polite and weak; he’s going after Trump the way Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney would go after Trump, not the way Trump goes after everyone else. So of course the attacks are impotent. Again, Christie is a coward (as are the rest of them on the stage).

    If you “Attack back harder,” you are still on Trump’s favored turf. He loves fighting dirty.

    Correct: the way to defeat Trump is by being better at the things that he did to easily capture and enthrall the Republican Party! I don’t understand why people think other Republicans can defeat Trump by using tactics he has already thoroughly proven not to work.

    You beat Trump in the GOP primary by being a better Trump: more racist, more crass, more vile, not less. You turn up the heat so high that Trump flinches.

Comments are closed.