Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

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

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

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

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Busy Campaign Season Already

TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Busy Campaign Season Already

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237Comments

  1. 1.

    Kay

    – 35% to 40% of Rs not supporting him nationally

    That really is good for Biden. I’m not as persuaded with Trump’s high negatives because Biden also has high negatives.

  3. 3.

    Matt McIrvin

    It happens within parties too: the Democratic Party’s left wing always believes the party is moving to the right, and the centrists believe left-wing extremists have taken over.

  4. 4.

    Kay

    Lol:

    Neri Oxman, a tenured MIT professor and the wife of billionaire Harvard donor Bill Ackman, plagiarized passages of her 2010 doctoral dissertation, a review by Business Insider claimed. Ackman relentlessly called for the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay over plagiarism allegations, tweeting that “Students are forced to withdraw for much less.” As it turns out, Oxman engaged in a “similar pattern of plagiarism” in her dissertation, according to Business Insider, plagiarizing from papers found in Nature, the Royal Society of London and a 1998 book published by Claus Mattheck, a German physicist. Oxman responded to Business Insider’s story via X, formerly Twitter, saying she was double checking her work to determine if there are indeed any errors. “When I obtain access to the original sources, I will check all of the above citations and request that MIT make any necessary corrections,” she said. “I regret and apologize for these errors.”

    The NYTimes is going to have to take the 6 reporters they assigned to the “destroy Claudine Gay” project and reassign them to a full time plagiarism beat- I guarantee there are more of these.

    Standards should be the same for everyone, I was told. Let’s see if they are.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    It is true though- I no longer read Trumperinos but I did for years (the commentors, not the paid people) and they always think Democrats are trouncing Republicans. It’s part of why they’re so mad all the time.

  8. 8.

    Chief Oshkosh

    One attack, two interpretations: FDR and Tojo both make the Dec. 7 attack a political rallying cry.

  12. 12.

    Marmot

    Will Stancil should still be embarrassed he believed in the “Biden decline” fad—it’s one of the propaganda classics, and you really should disbelieve it offhand when you don’t have great evidence.

    Did he not see the same accusation leveled against Hillary Clinton mere moments (politically speaking) before?

  14. 14.

    Argiope

    Is our media learning? Maybe. NPR’s UpFirst had two stories today: one on Orangemandias’s promise to pardon the Jan 6 rioters on Day 1, noting the waffling on who was included. Cop attackers? Yes, sometimes at least. The second was quite cleverly done: a story about how misinformation and conspiracy theories are generated, disguised as a story about the Epstein list. It was Social Media Savvy 101 but delivered sideways. More of this, please.

  17. 17.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    Standards should be the same for everyone, I was told. Let’s see if they are.

    Wonder how Claudine Gay’s plagiarism stacks up against Neil Gorsuch’s.

    ETA: Kay was quicker on the draw!

  18. 18.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think it does. There’s a lot of threatening to storm off, that sort of thing.

    I looked and looked for any indication they had noticed the Trump DOJ wasn’t indicting any of the people Donald TRump said were criminals though – Democrats would have expected/demanded indictments – and I never saw it. I expected to! But they don’t ever get disappointed in Trump, only in all other Republicans. That’s why it’s more akin to a cult, IMO.

  19. 19.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Marmot: Meh, as my grandma used to say, “Smile and be gracious.” Stancil is publicly saying that he was wrong, and that evidence shows why he was wrong, and that based on evidence he thinks he’s right to consider that Biden is not in decline and never was. What other pound of flesh is needed from Stancil?

  20. 20.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Well, I can tell you how the NYTimes coverage of it stacks up. Zero articles on Gorsuch and sixty two on Gay.

    “We use the same standards for everyone!” “Merit based!” Crock of SHIT.

  21. 21.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I suspect that if you examined most dissertations you’d find similar stuff in many of them. Perhaps not a majority, but many.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Isn’t it great? They may regret starting this war. You can run any work thru the ‘ol plagiarism checker, not just black peoples work :)

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    Former Capitol policeman and January 6 hero Harry Dunn has announced he’s running for Rep. John Sarbanes’ Maryland 3rd CD seat.

    It looks like Maryland and Virgina Democrats will have lively primaries for four open Democratic seats. Sarbanes is retiring while Maryland 6th District Rep. David Trone is running for Senate.

    In Virginia, 10th Dostrict Representative Jennifer Wexton sadly must retire for health reasons. Meanwhile, 7th District Rep. Abigail Spanberger will not seek reelection in order to run for Governor next year.

    Sarbanes’ seat is considered “safe” for Democratic candidates while Trones’ and Wexton’s districts are fairly safe. Spanberger won reelection in the redrawn 7th by only 4.2%, so the 7th CD is considered a possible Republican pick-up.

  27. 27.

    Marmot

    @Chief Oshkosh: Yeah, you’re right. Though it sure would be nice to see him say, “I’m surprised I fell for this classic of the misinformation genre.”

    But I’ll take the admission of simple misjudgment, I guess. Grumblegrumble.

  28. 28.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    It is true though- I no longer read Trumperinos but I did for years (the commentors, not the paid people) and they always think Democrats are trouncing Republicans. It’s part of why they’re so mad all the time.

    35 years ago Andrew Dice Clay was a successful, if somewhat controversial, stand-up comic.

    Now prominent people’s appearances are being canceled for daring far less to step outside the accepted liberal dogma. Imagine Charlie Kirk trying to speak at Oberlin College. The Oberlin Student Council would burn the school to the ground (like a BLM protest in Portland*) than let Charlie speak.

    Also, given the vast resources billionaires use to support Republicans, along with dedicated media, a strong network of conservative evangelical churches, electoral system that disproportionately represents rural areas, etc., I’m surprised Republicans aren’t in charge of everything at every level.

    When they try so hard to rule everything, they should have better results.

    Underperforming can feel like losing.

    *I saw the blazing fires in Portland, Oregon from my home in New Jersey. I think the ground was salted so nothing else could grow there for 1000 years. Truly awful.

  29. 29.

    Kay

    acynig
    9h
    Habba: I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court. I have faith in them. You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place. He’ll step up.

    I love when Trump’s low quality hires say stuff like this because I know it just kills the far Right justices to be portrayed as hacks by their own side- they think of themselves as Learned Legal Scholars.

  30. 30.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yep, they believe that white men always earned whatever they have, while everyone else’s accomplishments are suspect. It’s such a crock of shit, we had a supervisor here who should have been let go several years ago and instead they promoted him! They could have gotten rid of him simply by not promoting him; he was third on the list after the interviews, so they had the perfect justification, yet somehow he got promoted anyway. Happens with white men all the time!

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Didn’t a lot of them believe, or at least say, in 2020 that Trump was winning in a landslide and was even going to carry California? It was setting the stage for the claims that he did win and the election was stolen.

    I’m accustomed to the post-Reagan world in which Republicans always claim they have the majority and the standard taunt about Democrats is “that’s why you always lose elections”. But I haven’t heard that crack in a while.

  34. 34.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Until they control literally everything they won’t be happy. Here in MO, like in Ohio, they have supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature and hold all state offices, yet they still grumble because the voters have enacted things through the ballot that they don’t like. They’re also constantly trying to find ways to run cities whose governments they don’t like. They cannot accept that there are people who don’t want Republican governance.

  35. 35.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think she doesn’t understand that doing this makes it less likely Kavanaugh will want to vote the way she wants him to. It doesn’t mean he won’t do it anyway, but it’s less likely. I don’t see it as an appeal, but more as a threat.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    That goes back further than Trump though. Republicans here were absolutely convinced Obama was “toast”. They were truly shocked when Romney lost. THAT contributed to Trump, I think, the idea that they needed a “winner”.

  37. 37.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: LOL!! As the population gets more diverse, it’s going to be harder and harder for white conservatives to complain about this.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: They are just doing their best to insure we are properly cared for. Now go back to your seat and sit down while Daddy takes care of everything little girl..

  41. 41.

    RevRick

    @Kay: This is just evidence #1349 of the complete and utter moral and professional bankruptcy of the mainstream media.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    All of my comments are original works of authorship. 

    Oh really?  Have you ever heard of the dictionary? (h/t Third Rock From The Sun)

  43. 43.

    Soprano2

    @Sanjeevs: It’s hilarious to me that they keep being surprised by strong jobs reports. I heard it again just now on NPR, that this was a “surprisingly strong jobs report”. I swear, they are all rooting for a recession!

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    As the population gets more diverse, it’s going to be harder and harder for white conservatives to complain about this.

    One thing I have learned is that white conservatives never have a hard time complaining.

  49. 49.

    Splitting Image

    I think that most people worry about their losses more than their wins. The Republicans scored a pretty big win by overturning Roe vs Wade and women aren’t wrong to worry about how bad this may get before it is fixed. Nor are gays and trans people wrong to worry about what the Dobbs Court is likely to do next. Those things alone would account for a lot of the liberal sentiment that things are getting worse.

    But on the other hand, the Republicans seem to have expected that winning the abortion fight would turn a lot of moderates into hard-core pro-lifers and were surprised by the ensuing backlash. Even the war against trans people isn’t going well. Parents of school-age girls seem to be more bothered by the thought of their daughters undergoing mandatory vaginal inspections than of possibly having a trans teammate, and isn’t that all the proof you need that the leftists are winning?

    To make a long story short, liberals believe they are losing because when Republicans are in power, they implement bad policies that hurt people. Conservatives believe they are losing because once they have put the Republicans in power, people realize they are doing more harm than good and stop supporting what they are doing. The fact that most people think the country is headed in the wrong direction at the moment is primarily a result of how many Republicans are currently in office.

  52. 52.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Spanky: So are mine, but I have absolutely no worry about someone thinking they’re worth repeating.

    So are mine, but I have absolutely no worry about someone thinking they’re worth repeating.

  53. 53.

    danielx

    @Soprano2: ​
     There is no end to the list of things about which white conservatives complain or will complain.

    Note: saw somebody wearing a MAGA hat yesterday for the first time in months. Difficult not to yell “your man is a corrupt lying motherfucker who would sell out our country for five bucks!”.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: I hope someone is going through Christopher Rufo’s academic papers with a fine-toothed comb. He already got busted for claiming to have a master’s from Harvard when it was through the extension program. The “every accusation is a confession” rule suggests he’s probably a plagiarist too. If so, it should be public knowledge if we’re to have one standard.

  55. 55.

    Jackie

    @Geminid: I just woke to Harry Dunn’s wonderful news! He made his announcement on Morning Joe. I hope he has a good chance to represent Maryland’s CD 3!

    Now it’s time for coffee and to read this post! ☕️

  56. 56.

    Kathleen

    @Soprano2: I attended the Blue Ohio Zoom watch party on election night in Ohio and David Pepper invited Simon Rosenberg, who spoke briefly at the end of the call. I wish I had recorded his comments so I could play them on endless loop. He supported his optimism with (wait for it) DATA!!!! and also addressed Democratic Party’s dedication to moral and ethical principles. We are so lucky he is on our team.

  59. 59.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Marmot:

    Will Stancil should still be embarrassed he believed in the “Biden decline” fad

    He’s another vastly overrated “progressive” online mouthpiece.

  60. 60.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: we had a supervisor here who should have been let go several years ago and instead they promoted him!

    Was it a true promotion, or what The Peter Principle calls a “lateral arabesque” — a promotion that comes with a longer job title but reduced responsibilities, meant to keep them away from the important parts of the business?

  62. 62.

    prostratedragon

    Capitolhunters trace the continuing evolution of the Confederacy:

    Seems like everyone’s talking about the 1860s Civil War now. Was Jan 6 an insurrection? Let’s check where officials most tied to the Jan 6 came from (state AGs, US Reps and Senators). No surprise: it’s mostly the heart of the Confederacy, states that

    With choropleth maps!

  63. 63.

    Betty Cracker

    Good news: the initiative to add a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights in Florida up to 24 weeks got the signatures it needed to appear on the ballot in 2024. Now the state supreme court will weigh in on a challenge by the wingnut attorney general, who claims the ballot initiative language is confusing. DeSantis appointed most of the justices, so who knows. If the ballot initiative passers muster, it will need to be approved by 60% or more of voters. I think there’s a good chance it will pass.

  64. 64.

    JMG

    Trump really needs the Supreme Court. The Court, especially the justices he appointed, no longer need Trump at all. This power dynamic apparently escaped his attorneys.

  65. 65.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Splitting Image: ​Parents of school-age girls seem to be more bothered by the thought of their daughters undergoing mandatory vaginal inspections than of possibly having a trans teammate

     I think it is probable that children’s vulvas, not vaginas, are being inspected.

    Although the two words are often conflated in pop culture, they aren’t the same body part. The vulva is located on the outside of the body. The vagina is on the inside.

    Mandatory external genital inspections are outcomes of anti-trans legislation.

    Mandatory internal inspections are outcomes of anti-choice legislation. In some states, women needing an abortion were/are forced to undergo an invasive “wand probe” vaginal scan beforehand. https://www.shutterstock.com/search/transvaginal-ultrasound-wand

    In both cases, the cruelty is the point.

  66. 66.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: It’s hilarious to me that they keep being surprised by strong jobs reports.

    It shows that they aren’t talking to economists or business analysts, or at least, not the ones that base their forecasts on actual data about the economy.

    Inflation was the same way; bond traders were loudly saying (via their trades) that they did not expect high inflation to continue for long.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    Even if Biden wins, I hope people remember the media gaslighting about the economy.  It’s been really over the top.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: I imagine Habba’s comments might even be grounds to ask Kavanaugh to recuse, under the Court’s new (wink-wink) “ethics standards” (nudge-nudge). But I don’t think anyone should try that, since it could push him toward Trump — as his Senate hearings show, Kavanaugh has just a touch of oppositional defiant disorder.

  71. 71.

    Soprano2

    @Ken: No, it was a true promotion. I think the person who promoted him took the path of least resistance, because this employee already knew the system and was already a supervisor so there wouldn’t be any “learning curve” for the job. (Everyone knew that if he didn’t get the promotion, this employee was going to retire. That’s what eventually happened, once the guy who promoted him was gone – probably forced out IMHO – this guy was given the choice to reply to 10 allegations in a formal letter or retire. He chose to retire.) He was a personnel nightmare, though, abusive to his employees and lazy. He was overheard mocking one employee who has a stutter. He was rude to me when I was talking to one of his TV truck techs. He was a HUGE narcissist, that was the main problem. He blamed everyone else for his problems. He was known to do non-city business on city time, especially during Covid when he was working remotely (ask me why I’m not that sold on remote work being so great). He was an all-around nightmare employee, yet for some reason they kept him. We all thought he might have something on the boss, too.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    60% is a big lift. BUT I think we’re getting better and better at it.

    Biggest surprise to me in Ohio was how many Republican women came over. I have been hearing my whole adult life how they would do that but it was always oversold and they never really did – on this they do.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @Ken: Maybe it’s because they’re all generalists now, rather than being assigned to a certain “beat”. A true financial reporter would know that stuff.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It has. It’s been fun to watch the shifting rationale too – the new standard for a good economy is everyone has to get exactly what they want, immediately.
    clownish.

  75. 75.

    BellyCat

    @Kay: Worth noting, another WOMAN is attacked in this fashion.

    Met Oxman when she was a doctoral student. Confident and ambitious, she was more interested in talking than listening, and prone, at the time, to selective presentation of facts to support her desired interpretations while studiously ignoring those that did not. She was attractive but her arguments were less so. Some conflated the two and she was viewed and treated by some as a kind of Doctoral Supermodel. The hype was amped by the fact that her mother is genuinely a prominent thinker in the field.

    I knew none of this when we met and was nonplussed. Somewhat to my surprise, since then she has gone on to do some genuinely interesting things. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

    But…. Hoocoodanode that a doctoral system based on the extensive use of existing citations to extend new thought would/could blur the lines between old and new!?!?

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I don’t think we should kid ourselves though – these women are still Republicans. They aren’t going to start voting for D pols across the board.

    its pure self interest on ONE issue.

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @Beatrice Blacklow: I said the Maryland 6th seat is fairly safe, and that was based on Rep. Trone’s 9.5% margin of victory in 2022.

    The 6th does include Maryland’s western, Appalachian counties but the bulk of its voters live in suburban areas between DC and the mountains, including western Montgomery County and Frederick County.

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Splitting Image: So, conservatives think they’re losing because people don’t like conservatives’ policies, and liberals think they’re losing because people don’t like conservatives’ policies but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter.

    The way the right will spike the ball and dance in the end zone about their ability to exercise raw power against democratic opposition, then get upset that they’re not loved, is really weird to me. I guess that psychologically it might come from conservative attitudes toward authority, their idea that people are really happiest when they are slotted into a power hierarchy and obeying a strong Daddy. They can’t comprehend that people wouldn’t love that.

    But they’ll still talk about jackbooted thugs and valiant rebels when the authority is being used against them.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @BellyCat:

    I could have known that! And I’m not an academic.

    i just want these glass house stone throwers to tell the truth. They didn’t get the answers they wanted so they decided to destroy Gay.
    Niw they’re all going to be vulnerable under this new tougher standard. Good. Serves them right.

    Let’s go. Let’s have this fight.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I saw the Florida women’s health ballot initiative group is “the women’s freedom coalition”

    lol. I love our new names. We took freedom back, BC.

  81. 81.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: No, they got exactly the answers the questions were designed to elicit. I think those three would have been better off to decline to appear. You aren’t required to appear before Congress unless you’re subpoenaed.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

    They’re also constantly trying to find ways to run cities whose governments they don’t like. They cannot accept that there are people who don’t want Republican governance.

     

    They are against little ‘ d’ democracy.

    period.

     

    They don’t believe in it, in the least.

  83. 83.

    hells littlest angel

    Somehow virtually all Americans think their side is losing, whatever side they happen to be on.

     

    Well, they’re not wrong.

  84. 84.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Republicans here were absolutely convinced Obama was “toast”. They were truly shocked when Romney lost.

     

    Never forget…Willard got the same percentage of the White vote that Dolt45 got in 2016.

    Whites had made up their mind, and thus, thought it would be.

    When all of us non-Whites came back and said, uh uh, this Black man is OUR President….they were shook.

     

    It was Obama’s RE-Election in 2012 that broke many White folks. They thought their decision was final..and, when it wasn’t…they couldn’t believe it.

  85. 85.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Matt McIrvin: I believe that is because the left wing activists are over represented by the young who have no idea just how right wing the Democratic party and the country as a whole have been.

  86. 86.

    BellyCat

    @Kay: Maybe? Costly and time consuming to research dissertations and, as they say in academia, the battle is so fierce because the stakes are so low.

    Sure they pressured Gay, but the board stood by her. It was Gay, herself, who voluntarily stepped down. Put the shoe on the other door and what prominent RW asshole in academia will step down over a sloppy citation/plagiarism? We know the answer is: NONE.

    The bigger problem from my perspective is that ultimately what is taking place is anti-intellectualism — to gut public confidence in universities (which never were and never will be perfect).

  87. 87.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @danielx:

    Note: saw somebody wearing a MAGA hat yesterday for the first time in months. Difficult not to yell “your man is a corrupt lying motherfucker who would sell out our country for five bucks!”.

    Just yell “loser!” at them. Takes less effort and bothers them a lot more.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    Republicans here were absolutely convinced Obama was “toast”. They were truly shocked when Romney lost

     

    Remember the Karl Rove meltdown on Fox over Ohio?

    That was must-see tv.

  90. 90.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: There’s also a certain amount of Pundit’s Fallacy in the things they say: they believe the Democrats would be more popular and get more votes if they were more economically left-wing. And that’s probably true within their social circles.

    The fact that the Republicans actually managed to make inroads among immigrant groups in recent elections by scaremongering about the danger of Biden/Harris instituting a Khmer Rouge-like Communist dictatorship makes me skeptical that this is generally true, though.

  91. 91.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: “Dear audience, please don’t stop being worried about the economy until after the election. Thank you.

    Here’s hoping we worry our way right into the best economy of all time. We will then continue worrying.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Republicans were less nasty then – I could still joke with the lawyers- but I remember one asshole in my neighborhood flew his flag upside down the morning after the election.

    That was just a taste of the sore loserism that was to come.

  94. 94.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The way the right will spike the ball and dance in the end zone about their ability to exercise raw power against democratic opposition, then get upset that they’re not loved, is really weird to me.

    They’re domestic abusers.  The way the world is supposed to work is that they hit you and you thank them for it.  They get really, really, really fucking enraged when the victim does not follow the script.  You see it in statements by Republican congressmen regularly.

  95. 95.

    opiejeanne

    @rikyrah: Rove’s meltdown was hilarious to watch. We were at a watch party at someone’s house and there was a lot of laughter as we watched that live, and only because the hostess decided to check Fox to see how they were coping

    Ok, maybe more satisfying than hilarious.

  96. 96.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: and who has more authority over our lives as Americans than a Supreme Court justice an Ivy League college president.

    Community College Student Councils, if they have their way, will have all true-blooded Americans in a gulag before the year is out.

  97. 97.

    Jackie

    @rikyrah: I still go back and watch Karl Rove’s live reaction when Faux called the election for Obama! Outside of Obama winning, Rove’s on air temper tantrum meltdown was the election highlight for me!

  98. 98.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    Remember the Karl Rove meltdown on Fox over Ohio?

    Shit, I remember on CNN the first thing when they announced Obama was re-elected, the guy reporting said that was impossible because America is a center-right nation.  Unlike Rove, he immediately recovered.

    The national press live in a bubble, and its facts are dictated by rich old white guys.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @opiejeanne: That was funny. What makes it even funnier in retrospect is that it’s been all downhill ever since for Rove and his plans for a Republican majority.

  102. 102.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Soprano2:

    No, they got exactly the answers the questions were designed to elicit. I think those three would have been better off to decline to appear. You aren’t required to appear before Congress unless you’re subpoenaed.

    Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

    I was amazed when it was reported that they had accepted the invitation to chat with a Republican-led Congressional committee. No university president (actually, no sentient being) should ever do that. The Republicans are bad-faith actors on a bad-faith stage.

  108. 108.

    dmsilev

    Speaking of busy seasons, I’ve seen surprisingly little news coverage about the fact that we’re just two weeks away from shutting down half the federal government unless Congress manages to pass, at a bare minimum, another continuing resolution. Adding to the fun, the resignation of McCarthy and the expulsion of Santos means that the GOP majority has gotten even thinner, meaning that Speaker Guy-Nobody-Has–Heard-Of either needs 99% support from his caucus or he needs Democratic votes.

  109. 109.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: Some people think the R’s thought they had rigged it so Ohio would go Republican but it was discovered and shut down, and that’s why Rove was so shocked – he thought Ohio was in the bag for Republicans.

  110. 110.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Agree on all points. Florida passed the minimum wage hike and ex-felon rights restoration by 60%, so I like our chances if the wingnut state Supreme Court allows us to vote. FREEDOM! :)

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chief Oshkosh: I saw a take on this from someone a while back:  You either get called to a hostile Congressional hearing because you are in legal trouble or to be scolded.  This was a scolding, but they prepared for legal trouble.  They should have let their PR people take the lead rather than their lawyers.

  112. 112.

    louc

    @Kay: Bill Ackman was the chief instigator against Gay. Now people are going through his wife’s papers with a fine-toothed comb and finding examples of “plagiarism” along the lines of the ones charged to Gay.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    the guy reporting said that was impossible because America is a center-right nation.

    Honestly, this is still my default intuition about the US. But I’m a white guy in my fifties who came of age under Reagan in a Northern Virginia suburb that was then very Republican territory, surrounded by defense contractors and evangelicals. A Republican could get reelected with a 60% popular vote majority in those days and more than half of my high-school classmates would be happy about it.

  115. 115.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Omnes Omnibus: Your comment brings to mind the approach Trump has taken to his legal troubles.  He is trying to transform the legal system into a political dispute. I hope we [that is, our society] can recognize this and prevent it.

  116. 116.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: He is trying to transform the legal system into a political dispute.

    In other words; when neither the facts nor law are on your side, pound the table.

    A world where all judgments are made on assertions, rhetoric, and tribal personality affiliation is a scary one indeed.

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Yes, Trump is doing the opposite.  In his case, it isn’t a bad strategy.  His actual legal position is bad, so his best shot is to make the legal case irrelevant.

  118. 118.

    PAM Dirac

    @Beatrice Blacklow:

    Trone’s district is NOT safe. It’s Appalachia.

    I live in that district. It contains Appalachia like areas, but is dominated by northern Montgomery County (~75%D) and Frederick County (~55%D). I think over all registration is about +6D, which is about what Trone won by in 2022. It is certainly not as safe as PG County or Baltimore City, but it is relatively safe and helped by the fact that the Rs are tending to nominate wackoos (see Cox in the 22 governor’s race).

  120. 120.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: The NYT had a big Cavuto question this morning, something like, “Can the relief over lessening inflation last?”

  121. 121.

    sab

    @louc: Yay that. But they won’t fire her for the same issues because she is married to a big donor. But I like seeing the tables turned if they want to play that way.

  122. 122.

    Kay

    They are pouring money into outlawing medication abortion.

    If you thought Dobbs was big, wait until they go after 40% of early abortions in blue states. The medication abortion demo is the best educated and most privacy sensitive demo of all women.

  125. 125.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Ken: Plagiarist.

    I forget what it’s called, but there is a place where every possible combination of English words was electronically generated.

  128. 128.

    Scout211

    CNNNearly 300,000 lives could be saved from the nation’s wave of gun violence over the next decade if every US state enacted gun control laws like those held by states such as California and New York, according to a new study announced Friday by a gun violence prevention non-profit group.

    It’s the first estimate that offers a glimpse of the potential life-saving impact of stronger gun laws throughout a nation with significant variation in firearm laws from state-to-state, experts tell CNN.

    The study by Everytown for Gun Safety revealed new rankings for the 50 states based on the strength of their gun laws in 2023 compared to their gun death rates, putting California and New York at the top of the list for gun safety. Arkansas is ranked last in the nation due to the weakness of its gun laws and high rate of gun deaths, the analysis shows.

    New York and California are considered “national leaders” in the report, holding some of the lowest gun death rates in the country – 5.3 and 8.7, respectively, per 100,000 residents – despite being home to the two largest US cities. Arkansas, which has roughly one-sixth of the New York state population, has a gun violence rate of 22.1 per 100,000 residents, the study shows.

    Everytown designated five foundational laws that they say have proven to be the most effective in lowering gun violence rates – all of which are in effect in New York and California. They include requirements for a background check and/or permits to purchase firearms; a permit to carry concealed guns in public; the secure storage of firearms; the rejection of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws; and the enactment of ‘extreme risk’ laws that temporarily remove a person’s access to firearms when there is evidence that they pose a serious threat to themselves or others.

    Everytown used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looking at their rates of gun deaths in 2022, and compared those rates with 50 up-to-date policies for each state that they say are scientifically proven to be effective in preventing gun violence. The CDC’s data includes homicides, accidental killings and suicides committed with guns.

  129. 129.

    Barbara

    @Chief Oshkosh: I think there is also a certain amount of hubris on the part of people who are very, very smart and highly accomplished, that they can outwit these presumed yokels and scolds.  But everything about a congressional hearing is controlled by Congress.  The only thing you can control is your prepared statement, if you make one.  Every question is designed to be a gotcha to see if you can give them a sound bite to hit you over the head with.  And even though academics might be really, really, smart they do not focus on messaging and slanting reality for public consumption, which is what politicians do.

    In a setting like this, you come up with a core message and you restate it over and over again in response to questions.  Something like ensuring that all students are protected without squelching legitimate debate, and while you can’t necessarily avoid inflammatory language you try to foster the kind of engagement that allows respectful and constructive voices to prevail.

    It’s shocking to me that an institution like Harvard would have been so utterly clueless about this.

  130. 130.

    tam1MI

    @BellyCat: It was Gay, herself, who voluntarily stepped down.

    Gay “voluntarily” stepped down the same way Rommel “voluntarily” committed suicide.

  132. 132.

    JMG

    Harvard’s Board of Overseers is not renowned for trolling, but if they wanted to start, they could name Obama the new president. That’d french fry some minds.  In seriousness, there’s some talk here that one contender to replace Gay is former Mass. Governor Deval Patrick. He’s Harvard, Harvard Law and not an academic. He’s currently at that leftist bastion Bain Capital.

  133. 133.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Scout211: New York and California are considered “national leaders” in the report, holding some of the lowest gun death rates in the country – 5.3 and 8.7, respectively, per 100,000 residents – despite being home to the two largest US cities. Arkansas, which has roughly one-sixth of the New York state population, has a gun violence rate of 22.1 per 100,000 residents, the study shows.

    Don’t talk to me about rates. Basic numbers on instances of gun violence and societal innumeracy are much better for my arguments. /gunNut

  136. 136.

    PAM Dirac

    @PAM Dirac:

    It is certainly not as safe as PG County or Baltimore City, but it is relatively safe and helped by the fact that the Rs are tending to nominate wackoos (see Cox in the 22 governor’s race).

    It seems the filing deadline is Feb 9. The Ds that have already filed seem to be mostly Montgomery County local officials. I haven’t followed MC politics much, so I don’t know how strong any of the candidates would be. The last analysis of the D race I saw suggested that former Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner might run. I suspect she would be a pretty strong candidate. On the R side I see that “QAnon whack job” Dan Cox is running. (Quote from former MD governor Larry Hogan (R) ). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he gets the nomination, but I’m fairly certain he would be too crazy for this district.

  137. 137.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @dmsilev:

    Speaker Guy-Nobody-Has–Heard-Of either needs 99% support from his caucus or he needs Democratic votes.

    Republicans control neither the Senate nor the Presidency.  He needs Democratic votes, period, and he knows it.  So far he’s been following the Republican playbook of ‘posture and procrastinate until the last minute, then pass something bland like a coward.’

  138. 138.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Another Scott: Sort of. I did think of the monkeys example as sort of an explainer.

    But basically it has every possible combination of actual words of a given length assigned to a code. So, for example, any novel could be expressed as a sequence of such codes.

    It was procedurally generated and I suspect if you looked at the contents of most individual coded segments, they’d be utter nonsense.

    @Ken: That’s the one.

  139. 139.

    Jay C

    @JMG:

    Trump really needs the Supreme Court. The Court, especially the justices he appointed, no longer need Trump at all. This power dynamic apparently escaped his attorneys.

    This. Trump and his creatures seem to believe that the SCOTUS will be on their side because it’s bought and paid for.

    They’re not wrong: it’s just that it hasn’t been bought and paid for by Trump….

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    They are pouring money into outlawing medication abortion.

    No lie.

    Proves that ‘leaving it to the states’ was a phucking lie. Because, they are going after blue states.

    I still think it holds, because they can’t divorce this one drug from the rest of Big Pharma. And, I still believe Big Pharma will win out.

  141. 141.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Omnes Omnibus: Maybe. My experience with upper-level leadership in academia, in government, and in the private sector is that they are convinced that they are the smartest person in the room AND that they’re shit don’t stink. I suspect that each one of them thought that they were going to show Congress how it’s done.

    Unwittingly, they surely did just that.

  144. 144.

    Ken

    @Baud: Aren’t there a lot of boards like that?  The Federal Reserve, for example. Go on, get that declared unconstitutional…

  146. 146.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @rikyrah: I think he got slapped down by the NLRB  for firing employees who personally criticized him and this is him retaliating.

  147. 147.

    dirge

    @Frankensteinbeck: He needs Democratic votes, period, and he knows it.

    Do the Democratic votes need him?  Does Hakeem Jeffries still have that discharge petition in his back pocket?

  148. 148.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    1. How could an agency that’s existed for nearly 90 years without issue be declared unconstitutional?

    2. What are Musk’s chances of winning this?

  149. 149.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Musk, via SpaceX, is suing to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional.

    Wow. Musk is being extra stupid today. He really should adjust his medication.

  153. 153.

    RaflW

    @Frankensteinbeck: “America is a center-right nation (per CNN hack)”

    If that were true (it’s not), why are we saddled with 100s of far right freaks and open insurrectionists in Congress and in Gov. mansions and state houses around the country?

    Obv. rhetorical, but this center right bullshit is really steeped in pundit brain and even ‘hard news’ journalism hidden bias. OK (not really) but again, how is the GOP representing a center-right country? They’re totally failing that constituency.

    Oh, wait. I get it. The Democrats, the ‘left’ party, are supposed to be for these red-centrists. Uh huh.

  154. 154.

    Madeleine

    @Soprano2: Exactly right. It was a set-up and the three didn’t need to appear. That’s what the President of Columbia U did. She’s a recent hire and had been the head of the London Sch of Econ. and she was at the climate summit, so had an excuse.

  155. 155.

    RaflW

    @Chief Oshkosh: At the very least, the three college presidents should have had a drill session with Pete Buttigieg and Jamie Raskin to prep them. That would have been a hearing to watch.

    But I doubt it would have occurred to people in those leadership roles to think they needed to hone sharp rhetorical skills and subtle shiv-placing. One could suspect some “I can handle it” overconfidence.

    eta: I gave about 200 words of testimony as a community leader in support of the MN Dept. of Human Rights commissioner (who was seated next to me) a decade ago at a fairly crucial hearing at the MN capitol. Our org. wordsmithed that item for days, and held a strategy session, etc. We treated it as a BFD, because things like that can go wrong.

  156. 156.

    Gretchen

    I wasn’t worried about Biden winning until last night. My son-in-law said he can’t in good conscience vote for him because of Gaza. I had been arguing that Biden is trying to stop it through diplomacy but can’t explain why he approved sending more big bombs to Israel.

  157. 157.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Baud: hmmm…I would go back to doing employment then.  At least I would have entertaining cocktail party stories again!

  158. 158.

    cain

    @Kay: I wonder how much stuff Ackers has written? I”d like to see that MF gets some plagiarism charges going for him.

    At least his wife has the grace to apologize.

  160. 160.

    RaflW

    @Gretchen: It’s rough, and I’m seeing anecdotally that your S-I-L has company.

    No idea if this will work, but I’d say that now is not the time to try to persuade him back. Things are really raw right now — for good reason, the Israel-Hamas situation is a nightmare — and as you say, it’s not really clear what is driving some of the painful foreign policy decisions Biden is making.

    My hope is that as we get closer to the election, we can persuade some portion of the Dem-abstainers to do a gut check analysis of how much shittier not just America but full-on geopolitics will be if tRump wins.

    I still think T is beatable. If he implodes, I think the Middle East shitshow could hand Haley a path to the WH. Which would also be really awful, but not quite as existentially horrifying.

  161. 161.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gretchen:

    Does he know anything about Project 2025? Because not voting in good conscience for Biden is voting for a dictatorship. What good will the US be to the Palestinians if it’s a right-wing authoritarian dictatorship, which is what Trump/the GOP want if they win

  162. 162.

    cain

    @Betty Cracker: DeSantis is no longer a rising star – I suspect that he won’t be able to bully people like he used to.

    The man looks and is a total loser. I’m not sure what the polls are for his popularity in Florida but if you combine it with pissing of Disney (who probably is not finished with him)

    Florida’s overall numbers on anything is likely to plummet. Everything is trending downwards I reckon.

  163. 163.

    Bill Arnold

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Wonder how Claudine Gay’s plagiarism stacks up against Neil Gorsuch’s.

    I’m hoping the Business Insider piece[1][2] on B. Ackman’s wife’s (Neri Oxman’s) plagiarism (look at all the examples) inspires others to hunt scalps of other Right Wing “intellectuals”. It’s fairly easy, given all the available plagiarism detection tools. And automatable.
    [1] Bill Ackman’s celebrity academic wife Neri Oxman’s dissertation is marred by plagiarism (Katherine Long and Jack Newsham Jan 4, 2024)
    [2] linked by Kay at #4.

  164. 164.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gretchen: If the Israel-Palestine situation is determinative of the election, Trump will win, because there is no position Biden could possibly take on this that would keep his coalition together. The best we can hope for is that it’s not the most salient thing to voters.

  165. 165.

    Geminid

    @Gretchen: The problem here (I think) is that President Biden supports Israel’s goal of ending Hamas’s rule over Gaza. That’s why he is not trying to stop the offensive but is instead pressing the Israelis to be more careful with the ordinance we send them.

    That explaination is unlikely to meet your son-in-laws objections, though.

  166. 166.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    What good will the US be to the Palestinians if it’s a right-wing authoritarian dictatorship, which is what Trump/the GOP want if they win

    If the United States collapses or retreats into itself as an isolationist hermit kingdom, Israel loses its big patron.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    But they don’t ever get disappointed in Trump, only in all other Republicans. That’s why it’s more akin to a cult, IMO.

    They look around, they see other rethuglicans. They look at SFB and they think they see one of them, only stronger, louder and wealthy. Is he who they want to be? I doubt they would mind if it happened. Would they be a better human than him? Possible but not bloody likely, he does meet the absolute bare minimum requirements of actually being human. And not one iota more.

  170. 170.

    RaflW

    @cain: Florida is also facing some major challenges for their public universities. This may be a slow-roll disaster compared to other issues like the state’s untenable homeowner’s insurance situation, but it will be interesting to see how the next recruiting classes for marquee schools like UF fare (never mind what Rufo has done to fuck over New College).

  172. 172.

    Jacqueline Squid Onassis

    @gene108: I live in Portland, about 3 miles from the courthouse.  Portland didn’t burn but I was coughing every night from the tear gas that summer.  3 miles away.

  174. 174.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    The problem here (I think) is that President Biden supports Israel’s goal of ending Hamas’s rule over Gaza.

    Then maybe he should change his support for that objective because it’s making him look bad in the eyes of some and threatens American democracy

  178. 178.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: It does if it’s because the United States is too poor or internally chaotic to do anything else.

    I do think there’s a chunk of the foreign-policy far left that’s always seen Trump as a kind of bomb to destroy the American empire, and useful in that regard.

  179. 179.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    We’re not going to be either, even with Trump.

    Agree about the chunk of the left, but the problem is that regular young voters are being influenced.

  180. 180.

    RaflW

    @Matt McIrvin: The far left seems utterly oblivious to the casualties among their own followers (much less those of us who are just normal liberals & Dems) that would come with that bomb.

    @Baud: This too. The anti-Biden rhetoric re: Israel contains legit domestic criticism, and also has the feel of Putin’s churning social media minions.

  181. 181.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: Yes, it would be so much better for Palestinians if Trump got into office and greenlighted Israeli occupation and settlement of the whole area and, you know, killed anyone who stands in the way.

    If your SIL just now noticed Palestinian agony then he is being manipulated by dishonest brokers.  Oh sure, you know that, and I don’t really know what to do about individual instances of this kind of thinking, but I do think it’s worth stating that a foreign crisis does not justify turning your backs on people right here and in your back yard whose rights and in some cases very existence are going to be lit on fire.  “Hey look over there” is a strategy that has withstood the test of time because it often works.

  182. 182.

    S Cerevisiae

    Probably dead thread but on the subject of the 2012 election, I was in Chicago on election night and wandering around the loop- the vibe was incredible. CNN was doing a live show from a square and I could have been in a crowd shot if I was walking a little faster. The feeling in the city was electric, everyone was wearing a big smile, just amazing.

     

    Eat that Karl Rove!

  183. 183.

    Ruckus

    @Soprano2:

    They cannot accept that there are people who don’t want Republican governance.

    I believe that many rethuglicans think that they are the top of the heap of humanity so anything they believe must be true. I believe that is why they are conservative in the first place, they do not want change, they want to conserve the past and not people that don’t look/sound/think like them having a voice which must be wrong because it isn’t what they want. IOW they don’t share well.

  184. 184.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Most of the Israeli opposition parties also want to keep the war going, at least for now. Last month Yair Lapid was asking Democratic Congress members to not call for a permanent ceasefire. Lapid is head of the largest opposition party, Yesh Atid, and is one Netanyahu’s most bitter political foes.

  185. 185.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    I don’t know if the opposition parties are also pining for Republican wins.

    ETA: Regardless, even if they are sincere, we’re better off when the fighting stops.

  186. 186.

    Gretchen

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): SIL lives in NY, so his presidential vote doesn’t matter. But he lives in Staten Island, which used to be represented by Max Rose (D) and now by Nicole Malliotakis (R) who is a big supporter of Israel. So I will nudge him that way later, hoping that he’s less raw by November. He’s a new father – 1 yo twins – so the photos and stories of children suffering cuts him, and me, to the quick.

  187. 187.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    As Matt says above, nothing will hold the coalition together.

    ETA: I don’t know exactly what I’d have him do, but there has to be something else besides supplying them with more weapons

    I’d think the impending threat of a Trump dictatorship should be enough. What good would Trump do for the Palestinians is the question these people should be asked. And about vulnerable people’s rights here in the US

  188. 188.

    Geminid

    @Baud: The opposition parties don’t pine for Republican wins. But they view this fight as essential for Israel’s security despite the stress it puts on the Democratic coalition.

  189. 189.

    Fair Economist

    @Kay: Somebody who can post pictures should post a side by side contrast of the Gorsuch plagiarism reported here with the Gay “plagiarism”.

  190. 190.

    Baud

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’d think the impending threat of a Trump dictatorship should be enough

    Sure, but it’s obviously not for some folks.

    What good would Trump do for the Palestinians is the question these people should be asked. And about vulnerable people’s rights here in the US

    Voters who aren’t already committed aren’t plotting out strategic options. They’re making decisions based on emotions.

  191. 191.

    Gretchen

    @Geminid: Frankly it doesn’t meet my expectations either. For awhile they were pressing Israel to say what the plan was for after the war and not getting any answers. Now the seem to be accepting that Israel will just press on until there is no Gaza left.

  192. 192.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Well, at some point, they have to separate from Bibi if they want to stop the fighting.  I’m not sure what conditions they will deem sufficient to feel secure.

  193. 193.

    Gretchen

    @Baud: yes, that’s also my fear. Netanyahu knows that he’s out as soon as the war is over. He also wants Trump to beat Biden so keeping the war going as long as possible serves both goals.

  194. 194.

    Paul in KY

    @rikyrah: I could never understand why some people thought Willard ‘Dog on Car’ Romney was going to beat incumbent Pres. Barak Obama.  Smoking flooring wax, I guess…

  195. 195.

    JustRuss

    As far as the “both sides think they’re losing”, both sides are right.  The left is winning the culture war: gay and trans rights have come a long way, white males don’t dominate everything quite as much as they used to, more people seem to be aware the problems caused by capitalism and wealth inequality.

    But the right is doing pretty well politically: They own the supreme court, right-wing media is rampant. Having billionaires on your side is a hell of an equalizer. Unfortuntately.

  197. 197.

    Fair Economist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    If the United States collapses or retreats into itself as an isolationist hermit kingdom, Israel loses its big patron.

    Won’t happen if the US is in the control of a party which wants the Palestinians driven from Palestine so the Israelis can rebuild the Temple and bring about the end of the world. A Republican administration would be isolationist – except for enthusiastic support of ethnic cleansing in Israel.

  198. 198.

    Barbara

    @JustRuss: Billionaires are nothing in comparison to the stacked deck that has turned our Electoral College and method of allocating Senate seats into a rotten borough system.

  200. 200.

    Baud

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No, we’re not sure of anything.

     

     

    @Fair Economist:

    Correct.  Under Trump, I think the US will give the green light to Israel to annex all of Palestine. It’s beyond stupid not to vote for Biden if you care about Palestinians, but people are easily influenced into reacting to the immediate situation.

  203. 203.

    Barbara

    @Gretchen: Was your SIL this exercised when Saudi Arabia was bombing the shit out of Yemen, probably the most horrific humanitarian disaster of the last decade?  They were doing it with American weapons.  I am not saying don’t care about Palestinians or Gaza, but for heaven’s sake, the idea that it’s only wrong when Israel does it or when someone on social media brings it to my attention is a pretty poor reflection on his peripheral vision.

  205. 205.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Gretchen: Yes, not much seems to be changing in Gaza right now. Israel’s internal politics seem to be heating up now though, and one of the issues is their strategy for post-war Gaza.

    It’s hard to tell how their fight with Hamas and its allies is going. That’s one of the big variables here. There is also the possibility of another pause with hostage releases. Egypt is proposing a plan along these lines that might extend to a permanent ceasefire.

    And Saudi Arabia has a plan whereby Hamas fighters and leaders would be evacuated to Algeria. Right now Hamas says they intend to stay, but that could change.

  206. 206.

    Nelle

    @Gretchen: I have a Palestinian neighbor (West Bank) who says that none of his Palestinian friends will ever vote for Biden again.  What I am doing is staying involved, checking on the welfare of his parents still over there, keeping communication open (took a New Year’s card over on Monday sort of thing).  Now is not the time to discuss Biden.  May move in that direction in late summer.  Part of my approach to get out the vote is that, but it is also building community in this little neighborhood and listening without offering my opinion initially.  Yes, why the big bombs, but I also think that it is more a message to Iran.  And I think it a bit arrogant for us to demand that we know all as it unfolds; that isn’t how diplomacy works.  So let’s watch what happens.

    Right now, I’m trying to control freaking out about Ukraine.  My dad’s home village (which I visited in 2018) was occupied in March of 2022.  Life is grim there.  I keep telling my rightwing Congressman, a veteran, that Putin won’t stop in Ukraine.  This is the best deal we get in dealing with Putin.

  207. 207.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: I am 100% sure that Disney Inc and their phalanx of white shoe lawyers are most definitely not finished with him. Mickey has always felt revenge is a dish best served cold.

  208. 208.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Roberto el oso:

    in what way does the destruction of Hamas threaten American democracy?

    A not-insignificant number of voters don’t approve of Isreal’s conduct of the war or Biden’s handling of it, and say they can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden because of it. In a close election, if there’s enough of them, they could hand victory to Trump or another Republican if he implodes. The existence of plans for a “Project 2025” show that a GOP WH victory would mean a dictatorship

  212. 212.

    Roberto el oso

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it’s worrisome, I agree, although the response of these wavering supporters when it’s pointed out to them that an incoming GOP administration would prove absolutely catastrophic to the Palestinians in Gaza is very sadly lacking. I would also point out that a not-insignificant number of Biden’s supporters would find a lessening of support for Israel very troubling. It’s a tightrope for Biden and his foreign policy team but I would argue that their approach so far is not unreasonable (i.e. continued support for Israel, while questioning the sledgehammer overkill of the IDF, along with a full-throated and absolute condemnation of Hamas, and a determined effort to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian population as a whole).

  215. 215.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kay: Speaking as someone who just got a fairly lengthy law review article published, I really don’t understand how someone can commit plagiarism in legal writing, seeing as how the format essentially requires you to put a footnote after every single sentence you write.

  220. 220.

    Citizen Alan

    @gene108: I haven’t thought about andrew dice clay in years. But now that I think about it, he might well have been one of the first targets of proto canceling I can recall. When he was on Saturday night live, a couple of members refuse to appear in that episode and one other member intentionally sabotaged scenes in which he appeared by walking across the stage even though they weren’t in that scene.

    I wonder if that’s part of where trump came from: A generation of assholes raised on Andrew ice clay, maury povitch, and Jerry springer reached middle-age and decided they wanted. president as crass and assholish as they were.

  221. 221.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Citizen Alan: While I was clerking, I paraphrased something and cited the case. My judge kicked it back to me to directly quote the case because he though my paraphrase was too close to the original language despite the citation.

  222. 222.

    Gretchen

    @Nelle: That sounds like a good plan. You’re right that we can’t know everything that’s going on and I hadn’t thought about the signalling to Iran, which is undoubtedly part of the story. And also agree about Ukraine. It’s so stupid not to give them the weapons they need to finish the job instead of just enough to keep it spitting along.

    My main worry about SIL and young people in general is that there are bad actors manipulating social media content to help Trump and hurt Biden, and the Palestine/Israel conflict is one of those.  I’m afraid that will make the stakes unclear to some voters.

  223. 223.

    Kay

    @Fair Economist:

    Somebody who can post pictures should post a side by side contrast of the Gorsuch plagiarism reported here with the Gay “plagiarism”.

    It’s a but her emails situation. They all stopped caring about secure communications the moment after they took Clinton out. Plagiarism will work the same – an existential threat to America until the objective is met, then completely ignored. Did you hear about it with Gorsuch? I didn’t. They’ll return to that standard now.

  225. 225.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    Biggest surprise to me in Ohio was how many Republican women came over. I have been hearing my whole adult life how they would do that but it was always oversold and they never really did – on this they do.

    My mother was a lifelong Republican but was adamantly pro-choice, so I wasn’t too surprised.  Basically “I don’t want government spending money on [those] people willy-nilly, but don’t fuck with my agency.”

  226. 226.

    rikyrah

    @Roberto el oso:

     

    The Democrats are the Palestinians only hope.

    If a Republican wins, they will support the complete destruction of Gaza.

    The Evangelicals want The Rapture, and they see the Palestinians standing in the way of that.

  227. 227.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roberto el oso: As I’ve said before about third-party voters, I think some people fundamentally don’t have a consequentialist model of the ethics of voting. Suppose they withhold their votes from Biden over Israel/Palestine, and Trump wins. Would that make things worse for the Palestinians? Yes, but from these voters’ perspective, that’s not the point–their hands would be clean. They wouldn’t have implicitly signaled approval of something they disapprove of.

    I think that for third-party voters, voting strategically to get the best outcome is like telling a lie. This is similar.

  228. 228.

    Roberto el oso

    @Matt McIrvin: I pretty much agree. It’s difficult to say so when actually engaged in conversation with these types, for obvious reasons, although pointing out the foolishness of such levels of personal purity is definitely a good way to end any such conversation lol.

  229. 229.

    wjca

    @Frankensteinbeck: America is a center-right nation.

    Depends on how you define “center.”

    1) If you take it as the median voter, then you can say are the center, defined by the population, might well be marginally right of center.  Or perhaps not  (mostly because young people are more luberal but tirn out to vote less).  2) the center of the Democratic Party is closer to it than the center (whether median voter or median adult) of the Republican Party, mostly because the Republicans have spent several decades being (willingly) taken over by the crazies.  3) the center is nowhere near where progressives think it is or should be.  They’re closer to correct than the far right, but not that much closer.

  230. 230.

    wjca

    @Gretchen:  I wasn’t worried about Biden winning until last night. My son-in-law said he can’t in good conscience vote for him because of Gaza. I had been arguing that Biden is trying to stop it through diplomacy but can’t explain why he approved sending more big bombs to Israel.

    Perhaps ask him whether he thinks Trump would be better or (massively) worse on that score, and why.  Also how many more places Trump would push for similar genocidal behavior.

    It’s the old, “what are your real world alternatives?”  News flash: perfect isn’t one of them.

  231. 231.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gretchen:

    My son-in-law said he can’t in good conscience vote for him because of Gaza.

    Your son-in-law is a Fascist? Very sorry to hear that.
    ETA, i.e. on team racism / climate gigacide / oligarch / authoritarianism / Christian Supremacy / misogyny / punching down. Etc.

  232. 232.

    Kay

    @wjca:

    My daughter feels strongly about it too. I can’t talk to her about it yet – she’s too mad. She thinks they aren’t having any influence on Israel so they’re either ineffective or not trying – either is unacceptable to her. She believes Palstinians will be cleared completely from Gaza – that the US is either not opposing or actually backing a big land grab and purge. They think events will be show they are right as this continues and the Biden Administration will have been “on the wrong side” of a humanitarian disaster followed by a purge and land grab.

    I don’t know if she’ll come around. I suspect she will but I don’t know.

  233. 233.

    Kay

    @Gretchen:

    I get it. They say we are looking at this from a nostalgiac perspective that does not align with reality- that Israel has a far Right government now and Joe Biden’s 30 year old assumptions about how events will transpire are outdated and no longer valid analysis. A lot of countries have taken a hard Right turn – it’s not a completely crazy argument. It does change the analysis. I don’t think anyone can (now) say “they won’t ever do that” or “they wont ever do this” – I have no idea what Netanyahu will do or not do – he’s wholly corrupt.

    I never thought I’d see an insurrection in the US either until I did. The Right is different now. Unchecked. And that’s true everywhere.

  234. 234.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roberto el oso: Is it foolishness? I mean, if your aim is not actually making things better but staying true to principle even as the world burns, from that perspective, we’re the ones who were fooled, bullied into morally compromising ourselves with a mere threat of bad consequences. That’s why, for instance, warnings about the Supreme Court were always dismissed as “extortion”.

  235. 235.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It’s not foolishness, but it’s morally no better than people who vote to keep their taxes low no matter what the social cost. Arguably, morally worse than that.

  236. 236.

    Roberto el oso

    @Matt McIrvin: personally, I would call it foolish. In a gentler mood I might call it idealistic. But either way, the road to hell seems paved with good intentions. Applying personal principles to collective actions will always require compromise if one sincerely wants to achieve anything tangible. Those voters who prize their principles above everything else are like someone who wants to be in on the sausage-making while keeping their hands clean.

  237. 237.

    Gretchen

    @Kay: Biden and I are old enough to have known people who were prisoners in Nazi camps or fought in the war, so we have a visceral reaction to the need for a Jewish state. The young people have never  seen the aftereffects of that.

    SIL is of Indian descent and has 1 yo twins, so he has a visceral reaction to brown babies being bombed. I see his babies in those pictures, and I know he does too. Also, he’s a respiratory therapist who endured  covid in NY since when there were morgue trucks parked outside and didn’t have PPE, so he has a visceral reaction to hospitals being bombed and trying to save people without the proper equipment. It’s too emotional now, but I hope he will come down before November.

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