Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

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

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

Let there be snark.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

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

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Monday Evening Open Thread: Also Speaking At AME Today…

Monday Evening Open Thread: Also Speaking At AME Today…

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This would not be my chosen method of drawing attention, frankly, but I appreciate President Biden’s response…


Supplement, via the NYTimes — “Many Have Preached Politics From This Pulpit, but Biden Is the First President” [gift link]:

… After the murderous rampage by Mr. Roof — who sits on death row in a federal penitentiary — Emanuel evolved into a different kind of symbol, of the persistence of racial violence in a post-civil rights age. And when family members of five of the victims showed up at Mr. Roof’s bond hearing and expressed forgiveness for the unrepentant white supremacist, the church came to embody their breathtaking expression of Christian grace.

Family members and survivors of the shootings visited privately with Mr. Biden in the sanctuary after the speech. He also met with ministers in the fellowship hall, which is little changed from the night of the attack.

By setting his speech at Mother Emanuel, Mr. Biden “emphasizes that there is still work to be done, a reminder that even though we’re in the 21st century we still have some 19th century minds in America,” said the Rev. Joseph A. Darby, a prominent A.M.E. minister in Charleston and longtime Biden supporter…

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  2. 2.

    schrodingers_cat

    Why do these cosplay activists for Palestine only attack Ds? I have never seen them protest against the Republican Speaker of the House or the Orange Emperor or any other Republican

    The disrespect that they show for black folks tells me that they are the other side of the MAGA coin.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Anne Laurie bait (Politico)

    Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson rail against Biden to a crowd of seventh graders

    MANCHESTER, N.H. — In a primary packed with inconsequential debates among longshot candidates, Monday’s bout between Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson might have been the biggest dud.

    The Minnesota representative and the self-help guru sparred in front of a crowd of seventh-graders and adults in a downtown Manchester ballroom during the two-week runup to the primary that their party has decided won’t count and that the incumbent, President Joe Biden, isn’t bothering to compete in.

     

  6. 6.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @schrodingers_cat: Why do these cosplay activists for Palestine only attack Ds? I have never seen them protest against the Republican Speaker of the House or the Orange Emperor or any other Republican

    To be fair, Biden will listen to them. Any average Repub? Probably not.

  9. 9.

    Damien

    @schrodingers_cat: I firmly believe it’s because there has been a drumbeat for years and years now (and of which I’m only recently starting to become aware) that Democrats are the only one with any agency in this government.

    Republicans shut down the government? Democrats didn’t work hard enough on a compromise.

    Climate legislation not as strong as we wanted?  It’s the fault of the Democrats for having to deal with Joe Manchin, not the Republicans for refusing to provide a single vote and then bragging about all the things the legislation does.

    Also, I suspect that the reason they protest Joe Biden is because he actually seems like someone that could be swayed by passionate demands for justice; name me one single Republican who who gives a fuck about any justice not named Jim.

  10. 10.

    cain

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    It gives them more attention – anyone sore at the Democratic party when they are in power  gets some kind of attention. When GOP is in power – there is so much chaos going on that nobody has time for Dem grievance.

  17. 17.

    brendancalling

    @Hoodie: I’m a middle school teacher. It depends on the 7th graders. Mine would eat those idiots alive. They wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise.

  18. 18.

    bbleh

    You cannot claim racism isn’t the heart of the far left “movement.”

    I think it’s more that they simply … don’t care.  They’re so wrapped up in themselves, so frantic about proving themselves to … I dunno, their insulated group of peers, the voices in their head, whatever, that they don’t even think about what they’re doing, or to whom, only that they’ll probably get a lot of coverage for it.

    Not a big fan of “horseshoe theory,” but when it comes to their embarrassing immaturity, the (tiny tiny number of) leftists like this do indeed resemble the (comparatively huge) drooling/frothing masses of the MAGAtariat.

  21. 21.

    gwangung

    @bbleh:

    I think it’s more that they simply … don’t care.  They’re so wrapped up in themselves,

    Wrapped in privilege? Not caring about others’ oppression and why he held it there? Sounds like white supremacy to me…

  22. 22.

    Alison Rose

    @bbleh: Many of them really don’t give a shit about actual other people, only an amorphous “others” who aren’t anywhere near them. Blocking traffic for your little performative soapboxing proves that easily. What if there are emergency vehicles trying to get through, or someone trying to get to the ER, someone needing to make a flight they can’t afford to rebook, etc. Showing that little concern for people in their immediate vicinity tells me they only know how to care about people when doing so requires nothing more than shouting and stomping their feet.

  24. 24.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: As I’ve recently noted, if Biden is the only one who will listen, they better hope he wins the election.

    Couldn’t agree more

    Dodging big wide brushes here, though.

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    @Alison Rose: A few weeks ago, there were some of those protestors who blocked a freeway here in LA. The people who couldn’t get to work on time, who missed or nearly missed flights, etc. etc., were not happy.

  31. 31.

    gene108

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @Damien:

    It’s an abuser/abused dynamic Republicans have created. So much of what they do is based on the logic of “look what you (Democrats) made us do” that a lot of people give up trying to deal with them.

    The Left has internalized this and decided to tune Republicans out of their protests and lobbying.

    The anti-abortion and anti-birth control groups, the anti-LGBTQ+ groups, the guns everywhere groups, etc. despite knowing they have little influence to directly influence Democrats still go all out trashing Democrats for opposing their agenda of Guns, God, and more Guns.

  33. 33.

    Alison Rose

    @dmsilev: And the response is always “you’re awful for caring about SILLY THINGS like keeping your job or not losing hundreds of dollars or not bleeding out in the backseat of a car” or whatever. I support people’s right to protest, but doing so in a way that intentionally causes harm is so laughably hypocritical.

  34. 34.

    Alison Rose

    @gene108:

    their agenda of Guns, God, and more Guns.

    No, no, that’s not it. Remember Kandiss Taylor’s campaign slogan? It’s “Jesus, guns, and babies”. Although on her campaign bus it was just written as

    Jesus
    Guns
    Babies

    …which kinda sounds like an accusation against Christ.

  37. 37.

    Ivan X

    @Alison Rose: this is right on the money. I first observed this phenomenon in college, when I saw some of the most activist-y people reveal themselves to be just total assholes interpersonally, full of self-regard, arrogance, and indifference to the feelings of others as a result of their words or actions, even when I agreed with their cause.

    Also, people love being high on their own righteousness. It’s hell of a drug.

  44. 44.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @zhena gogolia: So it’s okay to rudely interrupt him.

    No.  However, this is a very normal branch of activism, appropriate or not.

    Also, if they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here talking about the good grace of his response. Our President knows how to deal with protestors.

  45. 45.

    Alison Rose

    @Geminid: I mean, I’m a vegetarian but I do think fish are cool, so I’ll go with it.

    Some fish, that is. Some of them are too creepy. Hence why my career as a deep-sea diver never took off.

  48. 48.

    bbleh

    @gwangung: wrapped in privilege definitely, but I’d guess that they don’t vote like white supremacists, or consume media like them.  They’re more like Eric Trump than Stephen Miller: it’s a racism born of ignorance and carelessness rather than active hostility.

    I tend to use the phrase “white supremacist” sparingly, and to reserve it for truly dangerous people like Miller.  I’m afraid it becomes cheapened if it’s used about people who are little more than ignorant children.

  49. 49.

    Damien

    @Kathleen: To be extremely fair, I think that a good number of the people who are protesting have only just recently discovered how jacked up things are in Palestine.  Which, to be even more fair, they really, really are, and I can understand why seeing the kind of unjust and horrendous things that Israel is doing in Gaza right now would move one to protest.  I think that demanding that Israel make things right that it has the power to make right is an entirely fair stance, and seeing the kind of overwhelming military response that is being executed now would make anyone who cares a whit for human rights very upset.

    However, I also think that the people who say that this situation isn’t complicated (which I saw recently), or who say that things got to the point they are entirely through the actions of Israel, or that Israel has no right to exist as it does, are wildly and spectacularly ignorant as well.  I literally saw someone who claimed that Palestine never attacked Israel because Palestine doesn’t have and never had an army, that it was Palestine’s neighbors who attacked because Israel was oppressing the Palestinians; this kind of absolutely soup-brain level bullshit is where I just can’t get on board.

    In addition, asking them how Israel should have responded to the 10/7 attacks, or how they expect the war to end, or how they would suggest conducting a war in a densely-populated urban environment, or who is going to enforce the ceasefire that they’re asking for all lead to answers that make it clear they’ve not thought about these things past “civilians killed = bad.”  Whatever fair points they may make about Israel’s fucked up behavior, they seem to stop the thinking there.

  53. 53.

    Ivan X

    @bbleh: I follow this logic. It’s like why I still say “sexist” for garden variety male chauvinism, rather than “misogynist,” which I reserve for the ideologically driven and physically violent, and I feel gets cheapened by everyday use.

  56. 56.

    cain

    @twbrandt: It’s just an accusation – and so what? It has nothing to do with the case.

    But I hope they realize that in a case like this the scrutiny would have been off the charts. I have no idea why people take stupid risks like this.

  57. 57.

    gwangung

    @bbleh: Maybe. But I’ve run into far too many of them who’ve attempted to take over POC causes, because “they know better”, or try to lecture POC about oppression or devalue the struggle that POC go through. I could see it in the attitudes a lot of Sanders supporters had toward black Democratic voters in South Carolina and I’m afraid I see it here.

  58. 58.

    twbrandt

    @cain: That’s just it. It may not affect the case, but it’s completely unnecessary noise, incredibly distracting, and yet another opportunity for MAGA to fling shit. And fucking stupid to boot.

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: Some of them see the United States as a whole as a force for evil, and Trump as a force that can destroy the United States. That makes him preferable to Democrats, who actually want the United States to thrive.

  62. 62.

    gene108

    @cain:

    But I hope they realize that in a case like this the scrutiny would have been off the charts. I have no idea why people take stupid risks like this.

    Good companionship and good sex are hard to find. I’m sure what the female equivalent of “thinking with his dick” is but reading the first twenty pages of the filing, beyond the possible love affair, there seem to be some irregularities about when the special prosecutor she hired was officially sworn in and whether or not she got necessary approval from the county to hire the special prosecutor.

    If basic shit like this isn’t done, I have doubts about Willis’s ability to dot her “i’s” and cross her “t’s”.

    County DA’s get a lot of leeway to fuck around with low level criminals without much pushback. Roman, the defendant, is about as low on the coup pecking order as they come. I don’t think she expected him to have effective counsel.

  63. 63.

    gene108

    @bbleh:

    I tend to use the phrase “white supremacist” sparingly, and to reserve it for truly dangerous people like Miller. I’m afraid it becomes cheapened if it’s used about people who are little more than ignorant children.

    This 👆

    Not everyone who isn’t onboard with the latest right-think about what is or is not racist is doing it intentionally. The culture has been so white (male) centric for centuries, it’s hard for people to adjust to it changing away from this center.

    Social inequalities also reinforce the white centric narrative, with black and some brown communities having higher rates of poverty than society as a whole, and the associated problems this brings.

  64. 64.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Disrupting a Presidential visit to an AME church commemorating a recent, racist massacre is really not a good look.  This is the kind of tone-deaf activism I can’t stand.  And my guess is that most of these jackasses are the type who are constantly coming up with reasons to hate Biden.  Student Loans.  Immigration.  Afghanistan.  Etc.

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Matt McIrvin: Nailed it. This is what they believe. The United States is the Evil Empire and anyone who opposes the US is good. Putin, Hamas anyone

    They hate Ds like Biden more than they hate Rs because that’s what’s standing between them and their nihlistic dreams.

  66. 66.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: I had an old old Usenet acquaintance who went from vague anti-US revolutionary type to full MAGA via this path. He started out by saying that Trump was the only idiot stupid enough to destroy the evil two-party system, then just more and more obviously became a fan.

  67. 67.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @gwangung: Yup.  Reminds me of a time when some white, DSA, Bernie-bros wanted to disrupt an event honoring a member of the the Black Community in order to raise awareness about a police incident.  The elder NAACP members (some of whom were literally on Edmund Pettus Bridge) had to try to explain to the 20-something white kids why it was an inappropriate venue for their action.  The Bernie Bros got super-defensive and even tried to white-splain the problem of racist policing to a couple 70-year old Black Men who had been fighting against the problem since the 1960’s.  This has the exact same vibe.

  68. 68.

    Matt McIrvin

    (I think what makes the ends of the horseshoe approach each other is ultimately this desire for some kind of purifying crisis that burns everything down. It’s a yearning for violent drama.)

  69. 69.

    steve g

    NYT: “the persistence of racial violence in a post-civil rights age”

    Is it really a post-civil rights age now? That implies to me that either everyone has their rights, or we have given up trying to make that true. I know the first is not true, and certainly hope the second is not either.

  70. 70.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Matt McIrvin: I had a friend like that went from Obama voter to BS sis to Jill Stein voter before ending up as the Orange Man supporter. I cut her off after she supported the Muslim ban. So I have no idea whether she has become full fledged MAGA.

  71. 71.

    Alison Rose

    SOMEONE NEAR CHATTANOOGA PLEASE GO GET THIS DOG:

    “The HES behavior department saw her potential but knew she needed some serious work before she was going to have a shot at landing her perfect forever home,” HES wrote on Facebook. “Fast forward through several months of hard work and dedication, Arizona is a shining star student of canine obedience and reactivity training!”

    Arizona gained her confidence back with the help of obedience training, and the loving girl was more than ready to show off her new skills in a forever home. But there was one problem: No one wanted to adopt the misunderstood pup.

    One HES volunteer, Krista Stein, fell in love with Arizona and soon decided to foster her. Arizona continued to thrive in a home setting, but, sadly, Stein couldn’t keep her forever.

    So, after a rejuvenating stay with Stein filled with treats, toys and lots of cuddles, Arizona reluctantly returned to her kennel at HES.

    Many HES residents found their forever homes in the months after her return, but Arizona remained overlooked.

    Months turned to years, and before long, Arizona became HES’s longest resident. The staff became determined to make every day special for the sweet girl, including frequent dips in a kiddie pool and play sessions with her canine friends.

    But she recently reached a rare milestone that called for a more spectacular celebration.

    “Arizona has officially been at the shelter for 1,000 days,” HES wrote in a Facebook post. “Despite this heartbreaking number, we wanted to make this a special day instead of a sad day for our girl, and spoil her in the best ways we know how!”

    She needs her forever home! One of you has got to have room or know someone who does, yeah?

  73. 73.

    JWR

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    And my guess is that most of these jackasses are the type who are constantly coming up with reasons to hate Biden.

    I saw a bit of an NBC focus group featuring young(er) Black voters seemingly answering the questions “do you hate Joe Biden and why?” One of them complained about student loans. Another said something like “I feel like I’m not a priority for him”. It was wild.

  75. 75.

    artem1s

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I liked the President’s response better:

    he let them go on for a good bit. they shouted down his first attempt at a response (obviously they did not come there to engage, only to disrupt). It was a bit nerve wracking – I would have lost it. Joe has the patience of a saint. and I think he knew the church leaders would take hold of the situation, which they did. he turned over control to them completely. I’ve rarely seen a candidate who has this much self control and trust in the process.

  76. 76.

    zhena gogolia

    @UncleEbeneezer: And I know how shocking it is when someone disrupts a gathering in a church, even without the history that this church has. It’s disgusting.

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: I was just reading some people expressing nostalgia for the COVID shutdowns because they were such a threat to the system, that suggested that maybe there was a better world beyond capitalism. I guess a pandemic that kills millions of people is one way to do that.

  79. 79.

    JWR

    I hate people who do this. From NBC.

    Special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the prosecution of former President Donald Trump in two federal cases, was the target of an attempted swatting at his Maryland residence on Christmas Day.

    According to two law enforcement sources, someone called 911 and said that Smith had shot his wife at the address where Smith lives.

    Montgomery County Police dispatched units toward the home but were called off when the Deputy U.S. Marshals protecting Smith and his family told police that it was a false alarm and that everyone inside the home was safe.

  83. 83.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I think swatting is a felony. At least, a federal criminal defense site says you can get up to a five year sentence for it, and more if someone is hurt. There are state laws as well. I guess the trick is catching the swatter.

  84. 84.

    Sebastian

    @gwangung:

    it’s exactly the same crowd, the Venn diagram is almost a circle.

    Many of them are soaked in Russian propaganda, accuse Ukraine of being Nazis, accuse Jews of being Nazis, and Palestinians have never done anything to anyone.

    They are traitors.

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