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Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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Everybody saw this coming.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Books are my comfort food!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

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

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

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Bark louder, little dog.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

A consequence of cucumbers

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Luntzed! (Open Thread)

Luntzed! (Open Thread)

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I don’t know about y’all, but when someone starts yapping about “freedom” and “liberty,” I brace myself for an avalanche of stupid. It’s not that freedom and liberty aren’t perfectly wonderful concepts that I personally enjoy very much — it’s that hard-right jackholes have been humping those words for so long that the terms are redolent of conservaturd ball sweat. And that’s gross!

Well, it looks like reproductive healthcare supporters stole a page from the Frank Luntz playbook and have rebranded pro-choice advocacy as pro-freedom work. The forced-birth crowd isn’t taking it well, as noted on Bluesky with reference to a recent WSJ article:

Luntzed! (Open Thread)

The forced-birthers stole the federal right to reproductive freedom from half this nation’s citizens, so we’re taking back the word “freedom.” Get over it, talibangelicals. Or die mad. Either one works for me.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  2. 2.

    misterpuff

    The Tree of Uterus Liberty Must Be Watered By the Tears of CryptoChristoFascists from now on.

  3. 3.

    MattF

    An article on Ars Technica says a certain ‘crypto hedge fund CEO’, a Mr. ‘Steven Reese Lewis’ does not actually exist in the real world. Which falls into the category of ‘ridiculous and inevitable’. Last paragraph of the article:

    On his only known social media account, Reece Lewis stopped tweeting in June 2022, around when HyperVerse was suspending customer withdrawals. While his identity remains in question, his pinned tweet has a link to a promo video for the HyperVerse, with a caption that reads, “where reality ends and imagination begins.”

  4. 4.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @misterpuff:

    The Tree of Uterus Liberty Must Be Watered By the Tears of CryptoChristoFascists from now on.

    You win Teh Interntezez for at least today and maybe a long time going forward.  That is Betty Crackeresque stuff!

  5. 5.

    Barbara

    “They stole freedom” has got to be one of the most ironic things ever written.  No, Dude, YOU stole the freedom of American women and WE are trying to get it back.

  6. 6.

    Jackie

    If using Freedom of healthcare choice pisses off the forced birthers I approve!

    Really, using “freedom” in all aspects of Democratic talking points is a winner for 2024.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    I learned something about this a week ago that seems relevant, so I will copy it here.

    I listened to the Claire McCaskill podcast (after Henry got me up for the second time in the night).  Katherine Clark (minority whip) was the guest.  Claire asked what the one or two issues that were going to be focused on in the fight in 2024.

    • Republican Extremism
    • Protecting Freedom (encompasses Roe, Ukraine and more)

    There are no regular republicans any anymore.  Apparently the “conservative” Republicans whisper to Katherine Clark that they really aren’t FOR the awful thing they just voted for, and it looks like the Dems aren’t going to let them get away with that crap.

    They are going to hang republican extremism around the neck of every Republican. They have apparently created a Marjorie Taylor Greene Index – voting records for every Republican – specifically how often they vote in lockstep with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

    Apparently every Republican ranks in the HIGH 80s and 90s in terms of voting in lockstep with Marjorie Taylor Greene.  See, she does have some value after all!!

    Anyway, I couldn’t be more pleased with the Democratic plan for issues to focus on.

  11. 11.

    RevRick

    Would the forced-birther position on “freedom “ be akin to the antebellum South’s, demanding the “freedom “ to own other people? Because it smells like tyranny.

  12. 12.

    B1naryS3rf

    I’ve told the left of centered to Co opt this for ages across many issues. Why have they been so slow on the uptake? And yes, the butthurt from the other side is mighty savory.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    Mr. Suzanne made me laugh this afternoon! He came into my office and told me, “I wanted you to hear it from me first…. They’re gonna release the names of Epstein’s John Does today….” LMAO.

  16. 16.

    Geminid

    Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola appropriated “Family” too. In 2022, her campaign slogan was:

                Fish. Family. Freedom. 

    My friend Debbie and her wife lived in Alaska for most of the 1990’s and she really liked it up there. When I told Debbie about Rep. Peltola’s slogan her reaction was, “Perfect.”

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne:

    NEW YORK (AP) — Social media has been rife in recent weeks with posts speculating that a judge is about to release a list of clients or co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

    There is no such list and the truth is less scandalous.

    Previously sealed court documents related to Epstein will be released starting Wednesday, but the great majority of those whose names appear in the documents aren’t accused of wrongdoing or have been mentioned previously in legal proceedings or news accounts.

  18. 18.

    KrackenJack

    redolent of conservaturd ball sweat. And that’s gross!

    Thank you BC for saving me from having to do my own research!

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl: I know. BUT IT’S FUNNY!!!

    Apparently Aaron Rodgers was an idiot (shocker!) and made some nasty comment about Jimmy Kimmel being one of the John Does, and Kimmel has threatened to sue him. Good.

  21. 21.

    Dangerman

    … conservaturd ball sweat.

    Curiously, that’s the Part 2 of that Christmas commercial trilogy; he gives her a puppy, she gives him a truck, but his Christmas stocking, hanged with care, had only  a bottle of Eau de Conservaturd Ball Sweat. Part 3 was the Divorce.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    Good CNN article about the Joe Biden labor boom:

    “I would say this is the best run of wage increases won by labor since the period right after the end of World War II,” said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Buffalo.

    But just as important as the unions’ leadership and bargaining strategy was the economic environment in which the talks were held.
    Unemployment has been below 4% since early 2022, the longest period it has remained below that level since 1969. There are far more job openings than unemployed job seekers, the opposite of conditions in the US labor market most years.

  24. 24.

    catclub

    @RevRick: Would the forced-birther position on “freedom “ be akin to the antebellum South’s, demanding the “freedom “ to own other people?

     

    Sure looks that way. Texas seems to be launching the Fugitive Uterus Act.      limited government indeed.

  25. 25.

    Eduardo

    Funny that unlike “estate tax” and “death tax”, “pro-choice” and “freedom to decide” means exactly the same.  But hell yeah,  we need to hammer them with freedom and liberty.

    But why going with the longer, latinized “decide” instead of the shortest “choose”.  “Freedom to choose” sounds pretty good.   Wanting go further away from “pro-choice”?

  27. 27.

    eversor

    Look we are a Christian nation and we tolerate Christianity.  Christians can’t practice their faith and thus their religious freedom is crushed.  While I have been pro-choice my entire life, as we are going to keep Christianity, we should be pro-life.  They should pass all the laws they can.  And anybody pushing pro-choice even remotely is anti-Christian and anti-religious liberity and Christians should be allowed to take actions into their own hands when dealing with them.

    I was wrong all these years in supporting abortion rights.  It was anti-Christian.  I am now pro-life!

  28. 28.

    Martin

    Ford just raised the base price for the F-150 Lightning to $57K. I can’t find details but I’m not sure any of the extended battery options come in under the $80K IRA cap now since they cut extended battery options on some models.

  29. 29.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Considering how anti-fun the right is these days, I think the center-left (i.e. Democrats) needs to double down on FUN!

    FUN! with Taylor Swift and Dolly Parton and the beverage of your choice (even Bud Light, we won’t judge).

    (I specify the center-left, because the LEFT-left are also a bunch of humorless scolds.)

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @WaterGirl: I listened to that podcast too! McCaskill is a pretty canny pol, as any Dem who won twice in Missouri would have to be. I love it when she gets in the weeds on messaging and how complex the task is.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @Eduardo: The cide part of decide comes from Latin, and it means “to cut”. Same root as in homicide. So deciding is cutting out other options. Choosing, on the other hand, feels more expansive. Not deciding between pre-selected options.

    You should make choices in your life. That’s core to what it means to be a person.

  36. 36.

    Leto

    Florida Rep Files Bill That Could Target LGBTQ+ Content As Felony “Grooming”

    A new bill, HB1135, has been introduced in Florida that could target LGBTQ+ content and communications as “grooming,” potentially leading to prison sentences of up to 15 years. Although the bill does not explicitly label LGBTQ+ content as “grooming,” its sponsor has previously asserted that drag is “evil grooming” and should be punished with felony prison sentences – this bill appears to be his attempt to accomplish that. Authored on behalf of the anti-LGBTQ+ Christian Family Coalition, the bill emerged following a meeting where the need for “anti-grooming” legislation and the prevention of the “imposition of LGBTQ+ ideology” were discussed. Its wording is vague enough that any content deemed “sexual” by a prosecutor and seen by someone under 16 could be categorized as “grooming.”

    The bill is only a few lines long. It specifies that anyone “observed by” an individual under 16 years old engaging in “sexually themed communication” could face charges of “encouraging a child to engage in sexual activity” or “grooming.” Notably, the provision on line 19 states that the offense does not apply if there is “permission from the parent.” This clause gives away the true intent of the bill: it suggests that the bill’s focus is not on actions universally deemed inappropriate, even with “parental consent” (like an adult sending explicit texted pictures), but rather on drag shows and LGBTQ+ content.

    Much more at the substack.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    Considering how anti-fun the right is these days, I think the center-left (i.e. Democrats) needs to double down on FUN! 

    Oh absolutely. If it was up to me, there would be a big effort amongst the Party and the candidates etc etc etc to really emphasize fun and attractiveness and humor.

    No malarkey, BFD Joe knows this.

  42. 42.

    catclub

    @Leto: So showing the movie “Some Like it Hot”  would qualify as grooming?  How about all the versions of MASH? Also “Tootsie”

  43. 43.

    Yutsano

    @Leto: ​There’s only one thing I can say about this.
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    It must be nice to be a lawyer in Florida right now. Maybe we should send Omnes.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Citizen Alan:

    You’re not even annoying or offensive anymore. Just boring.

     

    Before, his offensiveness was credible, at least. He blew that when he voted GOP to own the BJ libs.

  46. 46.

    brendancalling

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: and they are so fucking BORING. Last week I was talking to my local bartender about two different neighborhoods I’d visited canvassing for Fetterman in 2022, and this assclown customer pipes up with “I could never vote for him, he betrayed the left.” I said “that’s great for you, but I’M TALKING ABOUT NEIGHBORHOODS.”

  47. 47.

    Alison Rose

    @Baud: I don’t even believe him about voting GOP. He’s like a petulant schoolyard brat who just wants to say whatever he has to in order to rile people up. Which is one thing for a 9 year old, but in an ostensible adult is just a flashing neon sign saying I NEED THERAPY.

  52. 52.

    Leto

    @catclub: probably. Literally would not put it past them, because they can’t think that far ahead. They can’t think through all the ramifications of their actions, which is why they craft stupid shit like this. It’s why in numerous counties, the Bible is being banned. Idk, it’s a consistent theme with conservatives of the last 30-40 years.

    @Yutsano: and Steve in ATL could tag along! It’s a road trip! Can’t wait for those reports :)

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin:

    Ford just raised the base price for the F-150 Lightning to $57K. I can’t find details but I’m not sure any of the extended battery options come in under the $80K IRA cap now since they cut extended battery options on some models.

    Can you say more.  Many of us aren’t as versed in the details here. I have no idea what the $80k IRA cap is, for instance.

  57. 57.

    RaflW

    The affirmative same-sex marriage campaign was heavily backstopped by the organization Freedom to Marry.

    That wasn’t an accident. And it was the basic organizing frame of a lot of the work done in Minnesota, the first state that voters successfully turned back an anti-marriage constitutional amendment.

    Also, given that quite a few Republican politicians have, by accident or on purpose, gone on mic to say they want to next move to eliminate the freedom to chose some or all) contraception methods, these right wingers now have a mad because the left dares say freedom well, fuck ’em (better yet, don’t. Ever.).

  58. 58.

    Dan B

    @Leto: A rep from Indiana is sponsoring a bill to make it okay to send LGBTQ foster kids to homophobic families.  It would make it legal for foster parents to discipline the children.  Rights for parents, none for children.  LGBTQ+ kids are overrepresented in the foster care system, of course.  Being thrown out by parents is far too common

    By the way, thanks for pointing out this anti-LGBTQ legislation.  Right Wingers don’t want us to exist.

  61. 61.

    Eduardo

    @WaterGirl: 💯

    Ukraine, and opposition to authoritarianism and authoritarians such as Putin, reading what you want, being who you are, and very sadly, free and fair elections and respecting them.

    I totally like “freedom to choice” and “freedom to decide”.  Just think it is way less slick than Luntzian crap like “death tax”

  62. 62.

    JoyceH

    Jazzy’s out of surgery, awake and resting comfortably. I pick her up tomorrow. Surgeon says that even with the nodule removed and visible he still doesn’t know what it is. Said it doesn’t look like any cancer he’s ever seen, maybe it’s some sort of weird infection.

  64. 64.

    RaflW

    @Alison Rose: …in an ostensible adult it is just a flashing neon sign saying I NEED PIE.

    Coincidentally, I have two pumpkin slices remaining. One is definitely going down the hatch this evening. With no nod to everchapped.

  69. 69.

    Dan B

    @RaflW: I heard the founder of Freedom to Marry speak and congratulated him on his messaging.  The campaign was brilliant.  The gay rights movement was begun under the “free love” movement of the 60’s and 70’s.  Gay men, particularly, turned it into the endless sex era.  Freedom to Marry changed the discourse about gay men, and all LGBTQ people.  If we wanted to have committed relationships then we were like most Americans who want to fall in love.  It was a game changer.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: North Carolina could be a big story in November. Joe Biden came up 80,000 votes short in 2020, and he’s in it to win it this time.

  75. 75.

    Alison Rose

    @JoyceH: “doesn’t look like cancer” sounds like a good outcome, although I know the “we don’t know what it is” can also be unsettling. Happened with my previous kitty. Hopefully they will have more info for you.

  79. 79.

    Roberto el oso

    I’ve decided that ‘eversor’ is and always has been a particularly inept agent provocateur. He (I’m assuming it’s a ‘he’) was hoping to get agreement on his anti-Xtian bigotry so he could use this site as an example of persecution for whichever fundamentalist crowd he actually identifies with. Over the past year he’s kept on raising the ante with increasingly unhinged and vile sweeping calls for crushing Christians. Somewhere in there he ‘shared’ a vague hint implying that he or his loved ones had suffered some abuse from Christians during a foster home experience. At the time I thought, okay, that explains the obsession and I hope he gets the therapeutic help he obviously needs. I now suspect there was nothing there to start with, and that he’s simply a troll.  And, for all of y’all who have been saying this all along, my apologies for being a slow bear.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @WaterGirl: I did hear that episode, and she sounds great. “How to Win 2024” and Josh Marshall’s show are the only political podcasts I listen to regularly. They are realistic and informative without being depressing.

  82. 82.

    Eyeroller

    @Jackie: They used prepubertal boys because women were not allowed on the stage in England at the time. Women were first permitted to act on English stages in 1660. In googling this, I found that fewer than 16% of Shakespearean characters are women.

  83. 83.

    Alison Rose

    @Roberto el oso: I’d say when he called all of us rape enablers — including those of us who are survivors — he made it pretty clear he’s nothing but barely-sentient elephant dung with an internet connection.

  85. 85.

    Shalimar

    @brendancalling: I didn’t see that particular message the first time, so it is good to get a headsup now.  He was always ignorant and annoying, but that was way over the top troll-wise.  Not sure why he is even here if he has stopped pretending to agree with Democrats on anything.

  87. 87.

    RevRick

    @eversor: You know, to be a really effective troll you need to offer the possibility of a credible, plausible argument. You need to work on your game. Right now, it’s kinda lame.

  89. 89.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Ksmiami: Trump is actively campaigning on repealing much of the Bill of Rights including the right to peaceably assemble, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion. And of course the right to have your vote counted. So yeah it’s no secret that the Republicans are anti freedom. It’d be nice if the press would notice that one of our presidential candidates is talking about repealing the Bill of Rights but I guess that wouldn’t be balanced so it’s up to the Dems to point it out

  90. 90.

    waspuppet

    On one hand, great. On the other, our side could have been doing this since about 1982. I still want to know 1) who named the Affordable Care Act, 2) why they didn’t call it the Health Care Freedom Act, and 3) please tell me whoever it was has not been anywhere near Democratic politics in 10 years.

  92. 92.

    Roberto el oso

    @zhena gogolia: it took me a long time to get to where I’m at and yes, the expressions of hate might very well come from a place of pain …. the patience that this site has shown for eversor ought to be safe enough where eversor could feel free to clarify/elucidate, etc., but that hasn’t happened …

  93. 93.

    Roberto el oso

    @Alison Rose: agreed …. I also am a survivor and so I’m very leery of those who claim to be and yet are utterly insensitive in the ways that eversor has been …. the automatic assumption that anyone who doesn’t wear their trauma on their sleeve is, for lack of a better word, a sheltered “normie”.

  94. 94.

    Dave

    @Roberto el oso: I think when they first showed up they put a lot more effort in but when they didn’t generate the responses they were looking for they escalated to more extreme rhetoric and eventually have up the ghost and ripped like 90% of the mask off.  I’ve seen this before with high effort trolling sooner or later their patience runs thin.

     

    On topic I just love when they offended (and I think they genuinely are since the Democrats are taking THEIR toys away) when people who aren’t them poach from what they know is their personal propaganda field.  It’s beautiful and really drives home that their bedrock belief is “Fuck YOUR feelings their feelings are of course important”.

  96. 96.

    Ivan X

    @Yarrow: Agreed. I’ve never understood why our side hasn’t used it much more readily in our marketing; it’s not as if we don’t want and value freedom, too.

  97. 97.

    RevRick

    @catclub: It’s the same damned people. Southern Evangelicals are the descendants of the ones who vociferously defended slavery, advocated for secession and Civil War, and supported Jim Crow and its violence. Being anti freedom is in their DNA.

  99. 99.

    Quadrillipede

    Someone who votes (or pretends to) for the very same people they’ve been maligning for years is not really worth my time or attention, in my opinion at least.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @Roberto el oso: He’s talked about his childhood experiences once, maybe twice, probably as much as he’s going to.

    Now he’s in a new mode, a satyrical one. He still makes serious contributions from time to time, and did a couple days ago.

  104. 104.

    Quadrillipede

    @WaterGirl: Do you have a link to the image?

    Don’t have a link, but the image in question tends to appear whenever Adam makes a post about Elon Musk, IIRC.

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    Get over it, talibangelicals. Or die mad. Either one works for me.

    No question, BC, you and my wife are from the same culture.  Her version is “deal with it or die mad.”

  111. 111.

    JaneE

    Who would have thought that freedom could be defined as the ability and right to make up your own mind?

    Next campaign, “parental rights” should include the right provide both intellectual material and medical treatment for their own kids.

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