RFK Jr has announced Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.
Before blowing up social media about your opinion on this pick, spend 9 minutes and listen to Shanahan herself explain her story and why she’s chosen to be RFK’s vice president.
You will see 1000’s of posts attacking… pic.twitter.com/CTTmLCcsyy
— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) March 26, 2024
For two very significant reasons, ‘everyone says’…
1) She’s got the money, and more important the Silicon Valley contacts, to splash out on a vanity candidacy; and
2) To phrase it as delicately as possible, he wants it known that he doesn’t wanna have sex with Aaron Rodgers.
If you’re flummoxed by why RFK Jr has picked Nicole Shanahan, a person no one has ever heard of, to be his VP, understand this: This is purely because she’s the only person capable of self-funding to pay for ballot access that was willing to say yes to him.
— Lucy Caldwell (@lucymcaldwell) March 26, 2024
Two questions:
Nicole's 20 years younger than Robert's wife, given his history how much does Cheryl trust him?Given Shanahan's past friendship with Elon, will he feel obligated to support her over donald?https://t.co/xgPJ5BeKNk
— Ann Lee ???????? (@ALJWS) March 26, 2024
All the top google entries on my original search led to People articles, which is informational in its way, but this is solid reporting:
New from me: RFK's VP pick is tech entrepreneuer Nicole Shanahan, who's given his campaign a lot of money. In a very long (still ongoing!) announcement event, speakers leaned into conspiratorial themes about corrupt cabals and an irreparably sick country. https://t.co/FnewlSUUKv
— Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) March 26, 2024
Anna Merlan, for Wired, “RFK Jr. Announces VP Pick Is a Tech Entrepreneur Who Has Given His Campaign a Lot of Money”:
After weeks of speculation, anti-vaccine activist and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced today that he had chosen Nicole Shanahan as his vice presidential running mate. Shanahan, 38, an attorney and tech entrepreneur, has donated millions to a super PAC supporting Kennedy’s campaign.
“I’m so proud to introduce to you the next vice president of the United States,” Kennedy said, praising her as a “fellow lawyer” as well as a “fierce warrior mom.”
During the announcement, which took place at the Kaiser Center in Shanahan’s hometown of Oakland, California, Kennedy called her “a technologist at the forefront of AI” and that “she understands that the health of every American is a national security issue and a national security risk.”
“I wanted someone who is battle-tested,” Kennedy added, and able to withstand the “defamations” he said are part of running for office.
Shanahan has been in the news plenty and is known for her previous marriage to Google cofounder Sergey Brin, which ended in a divorce finalized in 2023. The Wall Street Journal reported that the breakup followed an alleged affair between Shanahan and Elon Musk, a former friend of Brin’s. Musk denied the affair on Twitter. Shanahan is also a prominent figure in Silicon Valley; she’s the founder of the Bia-Echo Foundation, which invests in projects targeting “reproductive longevity and equality, criminal justice reform, and a healthy and livable planet.” She was also a CodeX fellow at the Stanford Center of Legal Informatics, a collaboration between their legal and computer science department. And she’s the founder of ClearAccess IP, an analytics company…
Shanahan has never held political office but has previously donated money to the campaigns of Pete Buttigieg and Marianne Williamson. She also supported President Biden’s 2020 campaign. Earlier this year, she switched it up and donated $4 million to American Values 2024, the PAC that aired a Super Bowl ad supporting Kennedy’s campaign. Donor records also show that she has given to many Democratic candidates in past election cycles, as well as to the Democratic National Committee. During her speech, Shanahan announced that she was leaving the Democratic party.
Kennedy also stressed Shanahan’s youth and lack of political insider status, saying he was “most importantly looking for a partner who was a young person, and Nicole is only 38 years old.” He noted that Biden and Trump are the “two oldest presidential candidates in US history.” (Kennedy, 70, is just seven years younger than Trump.)
In a video introducing herself, Shanahan said that her daughter began showing signs of autism spectrum disorder in her infancy, and claimed that “environmental exposure,” including wireless technology and “medication” could be the cause of chronic illnesses. These are unfounded statements that are frequently repeated by the anti-vaccine movement and Kennedy himself. (Shanahan did not overtly say whether she’s anti-vaccine, but the fact that she’s serving as RFK’s running mate could be an indicator.)
Shanahan also pledged to assemble the best minds in technology to comb nonspecific federal databases in order to solve chronic disease. “We will find the answers to our most pressing health concerns within weeks,” she said, “not decades.”…
Under less fraught circumstances, Shanahan would be a sympathetic figure. She survived a genuinely harrowing childhood through hard work and determined optimism, ending up adjacent to some of the top Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. She got to be Sergey Brin’s second wife, and drew a lot of cold looks thereby, from the announcement of their relationship to its messy dissolution. She was desperate for a biological child, underwent extensive fertility treatments before giving birth to her daughter, and was understandably desolated when the child was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Elon Musk, the narrative goes, was sympathetic and offered her Neurolink research… leading to the predictable rumors. And, frankly, her VP kickoff hasn’t drawn good reviews…
Her problem is she’s not Sinema or Gabbard, she’s a Democrat, she’s mafia, she’s a globalist, etc.
RFKJr people are all different kinds of ideological & personality-type slop w little in common other than they were all dumped in to the same bucket https://t.co/4CEPYtw9R0
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 26, 2024
Only thing Nicole Shanahan brings to the RFKJr campaign is money to pay for signature gathering to get on state budgets, & a line of communications btwn RFKJr & Musk et al; ergo, she’s part of the communications/coordination between RFKJr & Trump. https://t.co/7gtmDZGoiy
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 26, 2024
War for Ukraine Day 762: Give Them “the Damn Patriots!”
SpaceUnit
Yawn. I’m going to bed.
satby
Sometimes I think the Amish have the right idea about modern technology.
Tony Jay
Somewhere in LA, Kanye sits in a darkened room, eyes fixed on a silent phone, refusing to believe that the call he’s been expecting will never come.
NotMax
Welcome to Shamalot.
Geminid
Democrats flipped an Alabama state House seat in yesterday’s special election. The Democratic candidate ran and lost in 2022, and there was quite a vote swing between then and yesterday..
NotMax
At least he didn’t choose Ronna.
//
HumboldtBlue
Even god has questions.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
Hahaha…
eclare
Yeah, if I were Cheryl Hines, I would definitely be worried.
eclare
@Geminid:
That was good to see.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
I’m disappointed he didn’t pick someone who believes the earth is flat
Jay
@David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch:
He can’t.
As the Flat Earth Society announced a couple of years ago on Shitter, “they have members all across the globe”.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Lot of that going around, isn’t there? Almost like the phone polling is way out and the media’s framing is a dumpster fire.
When was the last time the GOP actually won one of these off-cycle elections? Over here the Tories have entered a death-spiral of frequent and persistent defeats whenever voters get a chance to voice their dislike and that’s getting enough coverage that the bright young things at CPHQ are throwing every kulturkampf meme they’ve got at the wall in the hope they can bring out the extremists.
It’s almost like the US News Media is desperate to avoid a similar narrative where they have to talk about how BAD on every conceivable level things are for the Republicans.
Tony Jay
@eclare:
We laugh now, but offhand is Kanye rich enough to cover some of Stench’s mounting legal fees in return for running as ‘His Black’?
Baud
@Geminid:
👍
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Thought I read someplace that Ye and He were on the outs.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
I think he’s a billionaire at this point, mainly from his deals with Adidas, Gap, etc. But he also seems to spend a lot of money, so like TIFG, who knows how liquid he is.
Betty Cracker
I don’t understand how the RFK Jr. candidacy is still a going concern. I get that some political operators and sleazebag oligarchs have an interest in making RFK Jr. a thing to hurt Biden, but in an election, you still need actual voters to show up, right? Is the anti-vax and Q-anon crackpot community large enough to sustain the effort?
It’s also hard to believe there’s a sufficient number of living people who experience extreme “Camelot” nostalgia to keep RFK Jr. afloat. I was alive when his father was assassinated but have no memory of it, and it seems unlikely that a significant percentage of the people who do remember the Kennedy family heyday would transfer their allegiance to a kook who is shunned by the rest of the family.
sab
@Tony Jay: Is it good for your mental health to follow us? You are very good at following us, but I just worry.
Understanding us s//b a trigger. Those nuts in North America beinf nuts.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
What does he need right now except money and media? Later, he’ll need signatures to get on the ballot or a political party to sponsor him. But voters are irrelevant.
satby
Exactly. RFK Jr pulls from the same well of crazy that tfg’s cult inhabits, but the cult needs their god-king, not a gravel-voiced imitator.
Tony Jay
@sab:
Trust me, following American politics is a warm bath of custard with a sprinkle of chocolate dust on top compared to the absolute vomit-rocket of UK politics.
You’ve got a broadly centre-left coalition in power led by a guy with some blind spots and flaws but also genuine heart and a willingness to bring everyone into the tent. We’ve got Blue Pinocchio and his Tory Mob about to be replaced by the Light Blue Meanies who HATE their own Party membership and basically want to keep everything the same while enjoying the perks of being in Government.
Being on here is a pleasant day out.
Gretchen
I’m fascinated by the people who cheat with a married person, but are sure that once that person marries them they’ll never cheat again. This is particularly surprising with RFK, who kept a detailed diary of almost daily cheating which drove his wife to suicide when she found out. Does Cheryl Hines think that hound dog will never stray?
Baud
@Gretchen:
Maybe they have an open marriage.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: You’re right that voters are irrelevant now but a successful spoiler campaign will need a constituency down the road, correct? RFK Jr. seems ill-suited to attract a large enough constituency, but then again, this country elected Trump. I think Satby’s right at #21 — he mostly draws from the same pile of kooks who follow Trump, and they’ve already chosen their “fighter.”
Different subject: have y’all read about the Trump-Greenwood bible scam? CNBC story here. They’re jointly selling $60 “God Bless the USA” bibles that are the King James version of the Christian bible along with foundational U.S. documents and lyrics of Greenwood’s crappy song, as if they too are holy writ, I guess.
If you go to the site, there’s a video of Trump hawking the bible as if it were a Trump steak. Really gross. Also, I don’t think I’d ever seen Lee Greenwood before, but he’s what my mom would have called a “wormy-looking sumbitch.”
Baud
@Geminid:
Just learned that she not only won but won big.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
“Wormy looking sumbitch”, I am so stealing that. Yeah I read about that scam. Sneakers, Bibles, I’m afraid to ask what’s next. Melanie on OnlyFans?
eclare
@Baud:
She represents Huntsville, which has a NASA installation, so it’s a pretty well educated district. I’m surprised they had a Rethuglican before her.
Baud
@eclare:
Been Republican since at least 2018, although I don’t know if it was redistricted after the census.
https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_House_of_Representatives_District_10
West of the Rockies
@Betty Cracker:
He is also sooo charmless and creepy.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Some quotes that were highlighted in the Trump Bible
Princess
That ad is aimed squarely at Gen z and millennials. In a just world it wouldn’t matter but the media will be all in pushing her kinder gentler message. This election will be another one in which a couple of percent here and there could make a difference
Mousebumples
@Baud: yup. For reference, I saw historic reference points from 2020 of Trump +1, Doug Jones +5. 62/38 with over 99% reporting is +24 if my math is right?!?!?
Baud
@Princess:
Yes, I think our enemies are doing everything they can to discourage young people from voting blue.
Mousebumples
Baud
@Mousebumples:
Damn. 22 years.
Mousebumples
For reference, 1984 was the Reagan-Mondale electoral landslide.
Like I said in response on bsky, I’m hoping labor shows up BIG for Dark Brandon who walked a fucking picket line with striking workers.
Biden is the best union President in decades. Build back (unions) better, for electoral, organizing advantage.
(h/t Kay for making it clear how great Biden has been for unions in the comments for ages now)
Betty Cracker
@Mousebumples: Yeah, I feel much more optimistic about the upcoming election than I normally would given the current polling and Biden’s unpopularity. He and the Dems should get a lot more credit than they’re currently getting, but there’s upside possibility there before November.
Meanwhile, Trump is getting nuttier by the day, leaning into the stolen election lie and lionizing the violent pricks who attacked our Capitol as “hostages,” extreme positions that appeal to no one outside his dwindling cult. Republicans are too gutless to disentangle themselves from a sundowning Trump and the extreme forced-birth cult that is alienating mainstream voters.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the entire party rides the Trump train off a cliff. They deserve it.
ETA: New AP-NORC poll confirms the obvious:
No shit, Sherlocks…
Mousebumples
@Baud: yup. Another reason I’m excited about the potential for UAW organizing in the South. Let’s break the voter suppression red states.
(hope my bsky links/quotes work – I know some people might lock down their posts to those without an account, but the c/p interface is 2 steps, but waaaay easier for me vs Twitter)
More to come, lol…
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
colossal mistake. the obvious choice for Veep should have been Chuck Norris or Rob Schneider
Mousebumples
@Betty Cracker: yup.
I have a conservative cousin who’s working for a GOP-leaning PAC (Uihlein money, I think) mostly focused on down ballot races.
Apparently Mr. Uihlein is full MAGA. Mrs. Uihlein is more pro underdog, female, non -MAGA. I remember them being in opposite sides for the Wisconsin SC primary in February 2023, and having limited appeal to the other side’s voters in the actual election.
Rooting for injuries!
Matt McIrvin
Trump’s ferocious reaction to this announcement, calling RFK Jr. an “environmental whackjob”, suggests that he thinks or has heard that this candidacy is taking support from him, more than from Biden.
I don’t know–Shanahan herself seems to be in the old natural-foods-left-antivaxxer cohort we know from Waldorf Schools and such, a bougie liberal parent motivated by Wakefield’s fraudulent vaccine-autism claims. Now that antivax has become mostly a right-wing conspiracy thing, that group’s been overshadowed a bit, but I guess those people are still out there.
Mousebumples
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Biden has done so many things that Dems said they wanted for years. But apparently a lot of our people value complaining more than doing. I seriously might re-register as an independent if Dems don’t come out.
Mousebumples
Brachiator
There’s not much to see here. A nutcase with a notable family name allies himself with a nutcase with money. A side trip to a corner of a political Twilight Zone.
What’s George Santos up to these days? Has NBC hired him to be a political commentator? I hear there’s an opening.
Mousebumples
Hopefully those images links still work or you can click through since they illustrate the point, if you want to visually see/are familiar with what mastodon looks like.
Apparently this has been public since 2021?
I’m seeing references to the SEC/securities fraud, but I have no idea on that so will wait for more knowledgeable people to teach me things.
And I think that’s my bsky post spam for now, haha.
Matt McIrvin
@Mousebumples: The conventional wisdom used to be that Republicans had a disproportionate advantage in low-turnout elections, because their voters could be motivated to come out for them by beating the drum on the traditional Republican culture-war issues, whereas Democrats’ base voters often only voted in Presidential elections.
Today, this seems to have flipped on its head, and the conventional wisdom seems to be that Democrats have taken that advantage, but Republicans have a lot of voters who will only come out for Donald Trump himself, and they’ll probably reappear in November and squelch any blue wave.
But this is really all speculation, based mostly on the observation that polling underestimated Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020 and is showing Trump winning or close now, in stark contrast to all of the local election results. In fact nobody knows what a Presidential election in the post-Dobbs, post-Covid landscape looks like.
Mousebumples
@Matt McIrvin: I think that’s true in part. I think the GOP lost lots of well educated suburbia with culture wars and taking away women’s rights. Educated, voters turn out.
I think Trump’s base will turn out. But I think it’s smaller than it used to be.
… And what else am I missing?
Baby Mouse is waking up, so I’m out for a bit, but I’ll be checking in later, too…
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I am sad that our chance at saving democracy comes at the expense of denying people fundamental human rights.
eclare
@Brachiator:
He’ll follow Sarah Palin and go on The Masked Singer.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Maybe he’ll take up snake handling at his events.
//
Baud
@NotMax:
Wouldn’t he be the snake in that scenario?
Ken
Oh. Darn, I was hoping for an editorial position at Minitrue.
Matt McIrvin
@Mousebumples: Yes, I remember people mentioning that Truth Social was a fork of Mastodon almost as soon as it appeared.
Kay
Really shows you how deeply silly the age thing is for Presidents. What a ridiculous first priority. It doesn’t even make sense – Kennedy is old, too. He’s 70. All of the candidates will have younger vice presidents. How old she is, in this context, just doesn’t matter at all.
Kennedy is a vain and silly person. He’s a liar too. It’s outrageous how he claimed he “founded” an environmental org when he was just employed there as a lawyer – really “famous name celebrity for fundraising” but I’ll allow “lawyer”. “Founder” is a flat out lie.
Ken
I’m surprised it hasn’t been hacked, it’s probably full of unpatched vulnerabilities.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: More than that, he basically destroyed that environmental org by trying to bring in his crook falconry buddy.
catclub
Maybe they (or one of them) _think_ they have an open marriage.
Baud
I have more respect for oil companies than I do for any “environmentalist” that doesn’t vote blue.
Baud
@catclub:
“You never said it wasn’t an open marriage.”
Cacti
@Kay: Going to have to disagree with you on the age thing being silly. More than a few of us are beyond ready for our national politics to move beyond Boomer culture war shit, and “muscular” Cold War-era foreign policy.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
You just have to listen to him to see what an absolute egomaniac he is. His whole life he’s been sitting at tables with dumb people who hang on his every word, 100% because of his name.
This is a good match, really. Her claim to fame is she married a wealthy person and funds yet another dumb Silicon Valley futurist org. None of these people have ever done any real work – public or private sector.
My nurse practictioner says she sees people who are spending hundreds of dollars monthly buying supplements and woo woo cures WHILE bitching about how medicine and pharma are all about profits. What do they think the ENORMOUS alternative healing industry is about? They think it’s a charity?
different-church-lady
She’ll be gone before two months have elapsed.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
There’s always someone younger.
ETA: Ask Leonardo DiCaprio.
Baud
@Kay:
My theory is that there are many secular people who have given up religion but not the religion mentality.
Kay
Anti choice lobbyists are putting together “medical” guidelines for when physicians may give women medical care. So the medical “best practices” will be determined by far Right lawyers and priests and pastors of far Right religions. Fabulous.
We get these shitty, low quality “guidelines” developed by people with no medical training while men get actual, proven, medically sound best practices.
I don’t want a priest determining what health care my grandaughters are permitted. I don’t want this religion forced on me. Women don’t want it. I don’t know how we can be more clear. No means no. Stay away from me and mine.
Kay
@Baud:
If you’re spending a hundred dollars a month buying supplements from snake oil salesmen you can hardly complain about Big Pharma. Why aren’t the supplements offered at cost? The ingredients probably cost 40 cents or something. Big Supplement is making a killing.
I love how she’s going to cure chronic disease by hiring “the best minds in tech” too. Does anyone outside of the most naive podcast bro believe this bullshit anymore? I thought we discredited this in the early aughts.
Baud
@Kay:
There’s AI now. We’ll just ask it how to cure stuff.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Dunno. Her rise has been extremely fast and she was after very, very rich people. She suddenly flipped from being a strong Biden supporter to this kook? What, if anything, happened when she was an exchange student in Singapore?
Is she another Wendi Deng??
It’s all very strange.
Cheers,
Scott.
TS
Apologies if this has been highlighted before
It is hoped that voters will bury the GOP because of their wishes to control women’s bodies. The democrats are going to win on this issue.
https://wapo.st/49bpn8D (gift link)
Mousebumples
@Matt McIrvin: I may have heard it too, but I doubt I knew what mastodon was in 2021… When Elno bought Twitter and made it a enshittified mess, I started looking for options, which included mastodon.
@Ken: there were absolutely calls for black hats to take it down last night on bsky, lol.
Mousebumples
@TS: lots of discussion on that above. But, yes, great news!
Kay
@TS:
Thanks. I don’t think Democrats can rely on this completely – it won’t help that much in the super swingy states since so many of them are blue, but I do think media/Republicans underestimate how much it resonates with women (because they underestimate women).
TS
@Mousebumples:
Thought that may be the case – but worth repeating for anyone else late to the party.
Matt McIrvin
@Mousebumples: Yeah, I’d heard of it because I used to hang out on Google+ and when Google+ died, a bunch of people I followed there started a Mastodon instance.
I was reluctant to jump to Mastodon because the Twitter-like format didn’t sound like a thing I wanted for a “home” social network, but nothing better materialized, the downfall of Twitter inspired me to take a second look at that instance and I eventually joined. The vibe on Mastodon actually reminds me a little of what I liked about Google+, without the sporadic disruptions coming from corporate governance.
And it’s not quite like Twitter for a variety of reasons, one of which is that the default character limit is just longer (500 characters) and many instances now set it much higher than that (over its founder’s objections). Mine sets it as 1729 in honor of Ramanujan.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I wish Mastodon were more user friendly for tech normies because I like it. Still glad it exists as an outlet. It puts a limited check on the big guys.
Sad to say it currently looks like Threads will slowly become the Twitter alternative. For all the talk of it’s demise, Meta controls a lot of dominant social networks.
Kay
@TS:
The abortion bans have reopened the whole issue of removing children their birth families and putting them up for adoption. I think we’re overdue for a discussion of that. Younger women are really examining it in a way that women my age did not, out of a concern that anti choice religious are essentially using poor women to produce children and then removing the children from their birth families and placing the children with better-off families. It’s particularly topical for AA women because we remove so many AA children in the US.
States receive an incentive from the federal government to place children for adoption and deep red states place many more children. Texas is number one for removing children and putting them up for adoption. It’s revenue producing for the state because of the federal subsidy. When we compare Texas with California, for example, Texas removes and places children at twice the rate of California. I know a lot about this because of my juvenile practice so I’ve been following it. So the question becomes “is this an actual plan or policy of anti choice religious people? To use low income women to produce children, remove the children thru state action and then place the children with wealthier women?” It’s probably past time we honestly discussed this. I wasn’t aware there were these huge disparities between red states and blue states on rates of removals of children. It’s shocking.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I don’t think Mastodon was ever intended to become the big Twitter replacement–that seems antithetical to its goals.
A lot of people here are on Bluesky which seems like it’s becoming sort of a more normie Mastodon, whereas Threads is taking Twitter’s higher-volume “talk to the celebrities” niche.
Subsole
@Cacti:
I am a low serial number Millennial, so I don’t know much about Zoomers. I will say Millennials and Xers are going to sorely disappoint you on that front.
In fact, some of those Xers are probably gonna make you miss the Boomers…
@Kay: The ability to tell the cleric to go fuck himself is one of the many, many things Americans do not treasure like we should.
@Baud: Antibodies. In. Bio.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m on Bluesky. I’ve been meaning to try posting but I can’t seem to start.
Kay
So the way these Texas removals and placements work is Texas sends kids all over the country. So Texas removes children from poor people, sends those kids to adoptive parents in, say, Minnesota, and Texas collects the federal money for placing a child out of foster care. The more…shrill young women are calling this human trafficking and I confess I don’t think they’re wrong about that. It sort of IS human trafficking.
The abortion bans have inspired this discussion for obvious reasons – Texas is now producing more low income children to remove from families and ship all over the country -and I think it’s a worthwhile discussion.
Baud
@Kay:
First I’ve heard of it. Definitely consistent with what we’ve been saying about them.
Matt McIrvin
@Subsole: I have a Zoomer in my house. As far as I can tell, they are interesting. Actually interested in politics, without Xers’ omni-cynicism on the subject. Cryptic/surrealist sense of humor. So far left on the sex/gender/culture war stuff that even Millennials probably think they’re off the charts.
Yes, they’re at odds with old liberals on issues like Gaza but I don’t have a feel for whether that is a big enough split to break coalitions. Some of the boys are angry Gamergate-type reactionaries but I do think they’re a minority.
Kay
Incidentally, the federal subsidy that Texas is abusing by pulling kids out of families and sending them where ever the hell they want came out of the welfare reform law of the 1990s. Another bad downstream result of that law.
Baud
@Kay:
Is that the block grant or some other program?
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I had a really good discussion with my Zoomer about Gaza. I’m not at all upset he’s sympathetic to Palestinians. This is how I hoped to raise him. He’s right to object to 30k dead civilians with US backing. But I want him to vote for Biden so I made that pitch – how it was better for Gazans. He was receptive. He’s gotten more reasonable as he’s gone thru college. I think his GF is a moderating voice too – she’s more of a normie liberal.
eclare
@Kay:
Those women who drove off a cliff in CA with their six kids after years of abuse adopted them from TX. There was a newspaper article about the circumstances the state used to justify taking the kids, and it was infuriating and tragic what the state did.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: My impression is that Biden’s very very old guy vibes do make these kids not instinctively trust or like him. But Trump repels them more and they have strong opinions on issues that can probably be used to turn them out.
Princess
@Baud: I agree. And unfortunately what flows in to fill the absence of religion is often worse than religion.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t know if it’s distributed as a block grant. The objective was to end the practice of keeping kids in foster care for years, but there was a catch – states had to codify a priority for “kinship placements” – they had to FIRST try to keep families together – the term of art is “reasonable efforts” to keep the child with his or her family. Texas takes the money and ignores the kinship placement requirement (it’s in their state law but they’re ignoring it) because we have set this up so they have a (money) incentive to do so.
This is the whole family, btw. Any relative counts as a kinship placement. So that means Texas is declining to place with entire extended families and instead sending children out of state. They’re sending black and Latino kids from Houston to small towns in the midwest that are 99% white.
Ksmiami
@Kay: we need to destroy them root and branch. Peeiod
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Our side, and not just the young, tends to have an internal struggle between believing in facts on the one hand while being swayed by feelings on the other. As someone who works on repressing my feelings as much as possible, I find it very frustrating.
Princess
@Another Scott: Oh, that’s interesting. Hadn’t even thought of that.
scribbler
@Kay: I just want to thank you for bringing topics such as these to light here. I had no idea this was even happening. As with so much that is happening to women and children in our country today, it is truly awful, and needs to be exposed.
(edited for clarity)
Baud
@Kay:
Legitimate adoption is so important but I have a feeling there’s going to be a big scandal in adoptions in the next decade or so.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
I’m reading these young women on social media and they’re saying “human trafficking” and since I work in these courts – I do a lot of adoptions and a lot as a county-paid publci defender – I’m thinking “oh, come on that’s nuts, so much drama” but then I start to follow their links and red states really are doing this. Ohio is not. I can say that. We really do work hard to place children with relatives and the only time I’ve sent a child out of state was to place with a couple who moved to Missouri in the middle of the case.
And then I’m like “NOW I get why the Right out of nowhere started screeching that liberals were trafficking children. They’re fucking doing it.”
Because of course they are.
different-church-lady
@Baud: One shouldn’t repress feelings. One should monitor and processes them carefully.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: A Facebook friend of mine just reposted a meme saying that only about 500 children have been killed in the Ukraine war (“by both sides”) but Israel killed 11,000 in Gaza. He’s not a Zoomer, he’s, I think, a GenXer like me.
This “Israel/we are worse than Putin” angle specifically worries me and I hate that the situation has made me suspicious of the provenance of that meme, given the well-meaning and legitimate sentiment behind the reposting.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the comparison between the US outrage over Ukranian civilian deaths and the much more measured approach to Palestinian civilian deaths (3x that of Ukraine and Ukraine has 44 million people while Gaza has 2 million) is a legitimate gripe. They’re correct to ask why one group of people seems to have more value to the US than the other. That’s a fair question and one we should think about.
I also think it’s poor reasoning to say that anti semites within the protest movement around Gaza discredit that whole movement. Flat out far Right anti Arab and anti Muslim bigots in the US are part of the group supporting Israel. Republicans supporting Israel just tanked a federal judge for one reason -because he’s a Muslim. Pure religious discrimination. He’s a minority religion they dislike so they denied him a seat on the bench. No one says they discredit Israel. I don’t think they discredit Israel. So why would I apply a different standard to supporters of Palestinians?
fancycwabs
So much for disavowing the Kennedy Superbowl Ad, which Shanahan paid for.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Agreed. What worries me are the people trying hard to find reasons that it might actually be better for the Palestinians to elect Trump, and the Russian trolls who are undoubtedly trying to turn up the heat to split the Democratic coalition and maybe whatabout the Ukraine war (the Russians are the historic kings of whataboutism).
They’ll do that about any issue whatsoever, of course–I just heard that Russian disinfo organizations were playing both sides on the rumors about Kate Middleton, just to cause general division and rancor and get attention that they could then redirect for propaganda purposes.
Another Scott
@Baud: I don’t use it much, have never had a Twitter account, but I find Mastodon easy enough to poke around in and read.
I check https://mastodon.social/explore a few times a day to see what it thinks is worth noticing. It would seem easy enough to find new people/things to follow that way.
Choice is good.
I, personally, would and do continue to avoid anything to do with Zuckerberg. He does have a history after all…
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh, it’s a terrible environment. It will be amazing if we win this v Russia, the entire US Right wing and all of media. Still, I think we will win :)
Just fro the perspective of our Littlest Lefties they don’t have the same sentimental or historical attachment to Israel that older people do. We’re telling them “Putin is far Right, anti democratic, corrupt and he’s killing civilians” and they nod and say “so is Netanyahu” and I have to say “weeeellll- you got a point there!”
I had one of them tell me it’s WORSE with Netanyahu because Israel still has real elections and Russia does not, so Israelis COULD get rid of their far Right creeps, but don’t. They’re thinking about this- they just come at it from a completely different place, but it isn’t blind.
prostratedragon
@HumboldtBlue: Just turn my back for one second, …
Kay
My family is making fun of me because they caught me trying to give them ham that was left over from Christmas for Easter. Frozen! I divided it before I served it last time! It’s safe. I know exactly which kid ratted me out. OUT of the will.
prostratedragon
@Baud: Was just listening to about 1 minute of seasonal Bach on the same theme: “Sind blitze, sind donner”.
Bill Arnold
Why does RFK Jr called her technologist? She’s a lawyer. RFK Jr himself called her a lawyer. The patent work is essentially legal work, unless perhaps one is a genius examiner like A. Einstein languishing in a patent office. (Not belittling patent attorneys; I’ve worked with many on patents and on patent disputes, as one often does in tech.)
wikipedia: Nicole Shanahan
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: They also have no understanding of the absurd situation the US is in with respect to Israel because of a combination of decades-old sentiment, enemy-of-my-enemy alignments and geopolitical inertia. Because it is absurd and inherently resists understanding.
Biden’s distancing moves in recent weeks are actually pretty much unprecedented, but I don’t think the bell can be un-rung–of course from their perspective he never should have reaffirmed commitments to Israel after the terrorist attacks in the first place, and the things Israel does are things “we” are doing.
My sense is that Biden actually started out in a much more pro-Israel place than Obama had been, and in a Presidency in which Biden showed a remarkable capacity for learning, it was the one area where I think he might had trouble getting past his experience as a veteran of older eras of politics.
I just saw someone on Mastodon, age unknown, calling for Biden to invade Israel and “end the Zionist enterprise”. Uh, yeah, I wonder what that person was smoking.
Sean
@Baud: Out of just over 6,000 total votes cast in a Trump +1 district. It’s good news, but hard to discern much nationally from this result. Obviously, it was a flip, so the strategy of hitting IVF and abortion rights continues to be a good one. If there is anything to extrapolate it’s that. In any case, a win is a win and it’s certainly good news.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Man, he’s gonna make that Cesori girl wear some effed up outfit…
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Anyone who remembers it is getting older by the day.
SteveinPHX
@Baud: Too fat.
Miss Bianca
@Cacti: More than a few of us are ready for you to shut up.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: *cough* Theranos *cough*.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Me too.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Southpark covered that many years ago with the “Cherokee Hair Tampons” episode. You are, of course, 100% correct.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I wonder if anyone has asked the ‘best’ of the AI things: “How can we cure cancer?” or “What’s the best way to bring about world peace?”
Would be interested to read the answers.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Don’t forget that a significant percentage of people who do remember the Kennedy assassination hate the Kennedys. They won’t be voting for RFKJr.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Because Ukraine is a candidate for NATO and thus a future ally and the Palestinian Authority/state has never been an ally of ours and is an ‘enemy’ of one of our allies
Edit: Also the Ukrainians being (in general) ‘Christian’ and the Palestinians (in general) being Muslim sure plays a part also.
Paul in KY
@frosty: That is a good point too, though I think he was pretty popular when he was assassinated. They may have moved into GQPland in last 60 years, but JFK’s death was mourned by all but John Birch types, back then.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: Also, Ukraine has a sympathetic government led by an extremely sympathetic President against an unprovoked invasion, and Gaza is nominally ruled by a terrorist organization that opened this conflict by carrying out an attack on Israeli civilians. That *shouldn’t* make any difference to how much we care about the lives of individual citizens, but it certainly makes a practical difference in how we can respond.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: There’s a bizarre Kennedy cult within the QAnon cult–the people who believe JFK Jr. or even JFK Sr. is still alive and is going to reappear and endorse Trump. I suspect at least part of RFK Jr.’s election proposition is that some people actually have him confused with some other member of his family and will vote for him on those grounds.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: Did you explain to him that Trump will completely shut our door to all Palestinian refugees looking to flee to America if he’s re-elected? And that Netanyahu will face absolutely NO pressure from the US? If he thinks the US is giving too many weapons to Israel now, that’s going to get so much worse if Trump is elected. Everything he is mad at Biden for, will get exponentially worse with Trump. Trump is not going to lift a finger to help Palestinians and will likely go all-in on the side of Israel.
But more importantly: what about Women? Black People? The Undocumented? LGBTQ People? Does he feel no moral obligation to use his vote to help stand up for them? Do their lives and rights not matter? Refusing to vote for Biden, is effectively throwing all of those groups (and more) under the bus and also make things even worse for Palestinians. There’s no upside whatsoever.
Cacti
@Miss Bianca: Tick tock.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
It’s true! It’s something I think about a lot.
It’s also what leads to worrying “there are no innocents” kind of reasoning. That’s literally how Osama bin Laden justified killing American civilians in his videos–the US is a democracy, so every atrocity the US does (he rattled off a long list going back to Hiroshima) is shit we asked for, so we’re legit targets.
I also had an old online friend who, in the case of Israel, jumped from this directly to concluding that Judaism is an inherently racist religion, and it got worse from there.
Keeping this kind of outrage within constructive bounds seems to be hard.
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
The key to talking to them is to stay narrow. I don’t want to talk about “colonialism” in Israel or any of the other broader Lefty themes.
I don’t care who had first dibs on a piece of ground. Land is just ground to me. I’ll talk to them about human rights in Gaza and the US role in this. I think if you get into harm mitigation arguments with them you lose them, and I don’t want to lose them.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: It truly is bizarre. If JFK was still alive (had not been assassinated, etc.) or back before he died of old age in this alternate universe, he wouldn’t have gotten within a country mile of TFG and his low class shtick.
JFK and Jackie were ‘class’, baby! Also, he was a proud Democrat & would have been just about agin everything TFG stands for. TFG’s denigration of the military would have completely repulsed him.