If you haven’t already heard about Kristin Mink, she’s the lady who approached Scott Pruitt while he was eating lunch and called him a piece of shit (she used nicer language). That is enough to make her awesome in my book, but then I saw this and I think I am in love:
She’s whip smart, funny, engaged, and beautiful, and one of the many women out there who are PISSED AS HELL and might save us all:
There is a massive gender gap showing up in polling for the midterm elections, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll: Almost 60 percent of women said they were leaning toward the Democratic candidate in their district, compared to 42 percent of men.
Meanwhile, just 33 percent of women favored the Republican candidate, versus 50 percent of men.
This skew reaffirms the trend captured by a Pew survey earlier this month, which found that women, especially young women, were overwhelmingly likely to go blue this fall. (Millennial women have taken a sharp turn to the left in recent years, with this trend accelerating right around the 2016 election.)
You go, girls.
Brickley Paiste
After going for Trump last election, I am not sure that white women are reliable allies. The only group more suspect are white men.
Tom Levenson
The Y chromosome, especially in combination with pathological paleness, is a terrible condition.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
OT: This may be the most McMegan column ever.
Brachiator
Hmmm. Teacher at Sidwell Friends School. Ain’t that one o’ them godless hippie elitist schools?
And “Pronounces name Im-PEECH NOW. Priceless.
I am loving it. And I hope this continues. I don’t care if it gives Republicans and “civility” lecturing pundits indigestion.
@Brickley Paiste:
Like quite a few people, you misread the data. Carry on.
laura
@Brickley Paiste: There’s one thing Im sure of.. my distain for you and your concerb trolling. Please to be eating a bag of salted dicks.
Corner Stone
I’ll say this for Kristin Mink, she gives good interview.
peej01
We aren’t girls! Haven’t you learned anything?
dmsilev
@Brachiator:
Corner Stone
Also too, anyone who knowingly plants wisteria deserves every thing they get for the next 40 years.
Betty Cracker
I’ll never trust my own demographic, white women, as a voting bloc again since they went 53% for Pussy Grabbor. There’s absolutely no excuse for any woman who voted for Trump. That said, the people showing up to canvas, phone bank, register voters, collect ballot initiative signatures, manage booths at events, etc., in my area are mostly newly radicalized (by Trump) white suburban women. May they stay fired up and ready to go.
MattF
She’s clearly a Maryland/Montgomery County denizen. That’s a good thing, but it also means that her D vote will join with an established blue majority.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Brachiator: @laura:
Oh stop it you two. You’re going to give Brinks Trucks eat Paste a sad!
In other events, when someone tells you you’re wrong but don’t give any supporting arguments/evidence and tells you to look it up yourself, that means they’re full of shit, right?
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
Hey, welcome back!
Yarrow
I’ll repeat the story I told here on Saturday. I went to a campaign volunteer kickoff event for the House candidate I’ll be volunteering for this election. I did some postcard writing and sat at a table with several women. Two were older (65+) white women. One of them told me she was a “Bush Republican” (whatever that is) and then said she didn’t even know what the Republican party was anymore and there was no way she was going to vote Republican. The other older woman nodded along in agreement.
I have the impression these women have voted Republican since forever and the election of Trump woke them up. I wonder how many more are out there like them. This was for a House candidate so their disgust with Trump/the Republican party has filtered down at least to the House level.
There was also a 17 year old young woman who came in from the hinterlands for the volunteer event (the district is highly gerrymandered and huge) and she was super excited to be involved. She will turn 18 in time to vote in November. The rest of the table was cheering her on!
Edited to fix a sentence that said the opposite of what I meant. GAH!
Gin & Tonic
My nuclear family these days is majority-women, and I can assure everyone, including the stupid concern troll, that the voting-age ones would sooner eat a 5-pound bag of earthworms than vote for a Republican, for anything. Well, I can say the same thing for the men, frankly. But the women are fired up in a way I’ve never seen.
Gin & Tonic
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Yes.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I suspect you might need to break out evangelical women to get a true reading on the white women for Trump vote in 2016.
You will get some cannot breathe without being a Republican types, the hereditary Republicans, but I think mostly you will get the white female evangelicals.
In other words, the she-eple. Republicans project, because they are not the free thinkers they assume themselves to be.
In happier for us trends, it is not gonna be that hard to get first time voters — high school and college students — out to vote for Democrats. Trump and maladministration have removed the “my vote doesn’t count, and the parties are just the same!” argument but good.
The Parkland kids are doing a world of good.
Brachiator
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Yep. I read a passage in which she says,
Between 1976 and now, the vast majority of people believe that abortion should be legal, based on a chart of a Gallup poll that McMegan herself links to. Those who oppose all abortion has declined from 21 percent in 1976 to 18 percent in 2018, and was as low as 15 percent in the 90s.
She is a professional idiot.
Corner Stone
@zhena gogolia: I have a couple days off, and with no kid so I thought I’d chime in on the horror I saw in Cole’s twit feed. Five seconds of teh google will display all the horrible and terribad things that happens when wisteria is present. It’s beyond foolish and venturing in to Cole-esque terri….wait, now I guess I get it.
cthulhu
Honestly I do not think it sexist to say that the nation and world would be a better place if run mostly by women. It would certainly be a more thoughtful place. Obviously there are cruel, unthinking, uncaring women, but it usually doesn’t come with the aggressive impulsiveness of men. Nature/nurture of course but I am kind of sick of my own gender (and race, and fellow cis people, and, and…)
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Wisteria is FINE!* And for 1.2 weeks/year is very pleasant whilst in bloom.** And nothing kills it.***
*Provided it’s planted no less than 40 yards from the nearest structure.
**However, blooms create seed pods that on dry windy days explode, shooting large bean-shaped seeds as much as 30+ yards (see above rule).
***Ask me how I know.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Welcome back. You and Baud are back on the same day. Hmmmm…….
trollhattan
@cthulhu:
I would be willing to give it a go. How could it be any worse?
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: It cracks me up that on the one hand Cole is complaining about the terrible heat and on the other hand he’s planting wisteria. Exactly what time of year and weather conditions does he think he’ll have to be out in cutting back the wisteria? It’s not going to be winter.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow:
Double hmmmmm ….
Brickley Paiste
@Tom Levenson: One obvious solution that presents itself is for white men to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
They would still break towards Trump, but we could flip that by insuring that all of them get college degrees (Regent University Online?) since college educated white wimmins are reliable allies.
Dev Null
re-posting this from the comments at Anne Laurie’s “Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Hot HOT … Cold!” because the comment thread looks dead:
Emptywheel has a post.
h/t Atrios
randy khan
As some of the other comments have suggested, there’s also a huge increase in – I was going to say “enthusiasm,” but actually I think it’s more along the lines of “determinedness” among women. The ones who disapprove of Trump not only are going to vote, but they’re going to work work work. We saw that in Virginia last fall.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Sock puppets? Partners in crime?
Corner Stone
@Yarrow: I have nothing to say about a fellow pantsless American.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
A meaningless piece of data. Nationally, white women have voted for the Republican candidate, whoever it is, for a number of years.
But we don’t count the national vote. It’s electoral votes, based on the state tallies. And in a number of states, especially the states outside the deep South, white women voted for Clinton.
But as other posters have noted, women are getting fired up over The Great Orange Satan, and they don’t like him.
ETA: But yeah, white men are suspect. Buncha sad sacks.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Newlyweds?
ETA: Sheerly rumor-mongering here, you realize.
Jager
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
The paste eater from my grade school evolved, in high school he’d lick his glasses and clean them on his shirt. Miss Teal Edmunds, our 10th English teacher, would gag when whenever she’d see him clean his glasses in class. If Roger ever found someone to mate with him he may be the father or grandfather of Brickley Paiste
Brickley Paiste
@laura:
I don’t want to live in a world where eating salted dicks is considered a bad thing
@Brachiator:
See comment 10. I am reading the same data as Betty Cracker. What data are you reading?
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I suspect you’re right. Regarding the Parkland kids — the March for Our Lives site is now selling t-shirts with a QR code that people can scan with their phone to go to a form where they can register to vote online. Brilliant!
Dev Null
@Corner Stone: I will pass this along to The Spousal Unit, also too later comments in this thread relating to wisteria.
Ours all died, both the decades-old wisteria that shaded the house and the ones we planted to replace it. You must have super-wisteria.
Corner Stone
@cthulhu: I think in the short to mid term it definitely would be a significant improvement. But I sometimes wonder if society would acculturate women to the toxic nature of power. Through a series of barely noticeable changes, would we shortly be back to Big Swingin’ Dick power contests even with women in charge?
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Balloon Juice romance, aww.
eclare
@Yarrow: Noticed that too!
schrodingers_cat
@cthulhu: History wants to acquaint you with Indira Gandhi and Maggie Thatcher. Of course there was Ahilyabai Holkar who ruled wisely and well. But just being a woman does not mean that the said person is wonderful.
ruemara
Some white women are reliable allies. But enough have proven to be snakes in the bosom. White men however… I think we need a reliable committee to review them before we allow them to hold power again. 3 references required, maybe?
@schrodingers_cat: Bingo. I don’t like the idea that genitals make you nicer or better. We got a lot of worthless violent women that have existed. Let’s just go for better people.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: @schrodingers_cat: What about two heroes off saving the world for a few days, James Bond style? See Corner Stone‘s non-denial. Although “pantless” could be read multiple ways…..
eclare
@Yarrow: That whole yard is going to be a lot of maintenance…
Brachiator
The movie, The First Purge, opens this today. The film is a prequel depicting the origins of the first annual “Purge”, a 12-hour period in which all crime in America, including murder, is legal.
As far as I know, no one has yet made the obvious “purge” movie. Imagine: a future dystopic America where every year there is a 12-hour period during which all crime committed by women, including murder, is legal.
Yarrow
@eclare: I know! From Cole’s post below:
“ALL I will need to do is a little maintenance.” LOLOLOLOLOL
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Thanks for explaining how demographic distribution and the electoral college work! I just puzzled and puzzled over those concepts until my poor little brain was all a muddle. [rolling eyes emoji]
Brickley Paiste
@cthulhu:
Yes and you point is further proven by just a quick glance at women who have assumed leadership roles. Gilda Meir, Indira Ghandi, An Song Su Chi, Angela Merkel, Maggie Thatcher were/are certainly thoughtful.
cthulhu
@Corner Stone:
Yes, that’s the nature vs. nurture part. In time, women could become worse but I suspect still not as bad.
Corner Stone
@Dev Null: That wisteria didn’t die. Because nothing can kill it. It’s somewhere, lurking. It’s probably already in every pipe, the foundation, any brick structure you may have…it’s coming for you.
Fifteen+ years after I manually pulled and tugged and dug and chopped and burned the wisteria on my property I still have it. It hid in my neighbor’s yard. Then propagated back through our common brick wall.
Brachiator
@Brickley Paiste:
See my comment 31.
Yarrow
@Dev Null: It is possible that you can’t plant wisteria in the same place wisteria has been before. I don’t know that, but it is supposedly a truism for roses. They do something to the soil to keep other roses from growing there. Various other plants are the same. I think you can amend the soil and/or plant something else there for awhile and then replant, but not sure.
cthulhu
@schrodingers_cat:
I noted that there will always be exceptions (I was thinking speciifically of Thatcher as I was writing that comment) but note also, those women came to power in a time that to be a woman in power, you had to still “act like a man” to be taken seriously. We are still kind of in that place but the expectations have changed somewhat as to the useful characteristics for leaders.
Corner Stone
@eclare: The wisteria is IMO just like making a decision to start practicing voodoo or occult stuff. Beyond insane. But I also have no idea why anyone would plant a willow in that backyard?
Elizabelle
Chelsea Clinton attended Sidwell Friends, where Ms. Mink teaches.
As did the Nixon daughters (recall, RMN was a Quaker), Charles Lindbergh (!), Bill Nye the Science Guy … Nancy Reagan (2 years in primary school), Baratunde Thurston, Gore Vidal …
And Sidwell apparently successfully repelled Kellyanne “Alternative Facts” Conway’s kids. I think … She was whining about not being able to get her kids into a good school for a while. … No idea where those four poor kids finally ended up. FWIW, Sidwell is $40 K a year.
From Wikipedia:
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Nope. I did not explain. I simply reminded you about the detail. I know you know this.
No reason to pick a fight when we agree on the larger point.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Wow, that *is* brilliant!
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Or lawyer and client.
Like we will ever find out!
But a hearty welcome and GTFO to both of them.
dww44
@Betty Cracker: Yep. I’ve never comprehended how any self-respecting woman could have ever voted for him. However, one of my friends here worships at the very feet of Trump and his actions since taking office haven’t persuaded her differently. She’s an educated very well-off white woman.
Anyways, a lot of mostly white women like me showed up to march on 1/21/17. The great majority of marchers on that day at the march I attended, although organized by African and Muslim Americans, were white women. Many with their daughters. It was inspiring then and continues to inspire me today.
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle: Grab That Funky Orb?
Manyakitty
@Yarrow: Hope survives! Those women and others like them can turn the tide.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat: Also Golda Meir. But in all cases those women negotiated a male-dominated environment. What happens when the environment turns 50-50 or is female-dominated? Be interesting to observe.
Yellowdog
@MattF: We could use more women elected officials in Maryland. Our entire congressional delegation is male, as are the AG and Comptroller. Some very good people (for example, Elijah Cummings) but there is an overabundance of the Y chromosome.
Spider-Dan
@Brachiator: I think it’s fair to use national numbers; I use them all the time when I mention that Hillary got over 3 million more votes than Trump. And yeah, the fact that white women voted for a self-described sexual assaulter like he was Bob Dole is a problem.
That isn’t to say they are the only problem. I have multiple black men in my own (Bay Area) family who voted for Trump, and I still feel a great amount of shame about the performance of black voters in CA over Prop 8 nearly a decade ago; I’ve had several heated discussions with my family on SSM.
The upshot is that I think we need to start calling these allies to the mat, and applying pressure internally. Black people need to pressure each other on LGBT rights, and white women need to pressure each other on not enabling white supremacy.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: You did explain, and at some length. That said, I’m sorry for biting your head off about it. That was unwarranted.
No excuse, but as an explanation, I’ll just say that I don’t view a vote for a leering misogynist like Trump as equivalent to a vote for Romney or McCain, and the realization that 53% of my fellow white women cast that ballot filled me with a disgust and anger that will never dissipate.
Calouste
Going by the voter stats up top, the next target group for voter suppression is going to be women.
schrodingers_cat
@cthulhu: As a woman I can tell you that women haven’t cornered the market on goodness. They are just as capable of inflicting horrors on scales large and small.
That said I do think we need more women in office because they have different life experiences and POVs than men, not because they are some paragons of virtue.
Elizabelle
WRT women in politics: look at Canada and Spain. Lots of (young!) women in cabinet and leadership posts. Especially now. (3 of the last 4 Spanish Ministers of Defense have been women, and one of them, I think, was reviewing the troops while pregnant.)
Remember also the brilliant late Simone Veil of France, who died just over a year ago at almost 90 after a long and productive life. She was recently reburied in the Pantheon, as a high state honor, according to President Macron’s wishes. Not to be confused with Simone Weil, a young philosopher who died during WWII.
schrodingers_cat
@Calouste: Well many RWNJ are still against universal suffrage.
Spanky
@Corner Stone: The fuckers who owned our house installed wisteria in 1974, and let those runners run. I doubt the meteor will kill it. Maybe once our sun has turned into a red giant and consumed Earth, but maybe not.
msdc
@Brachiator:
And white women were the only demographic to increase their support for the Democratic candidate from 2012 to 2016 – every other group declined. They didn’t increase their support by enough to offset the other losses, but it’s perverse – or willfully obtuse – to blame the one group that moved in the right direction, especially when they are also one of the pillars of our coalition.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
My 18-year-old niece has already cast her first vote, in California’s primary election. Her mom was so proud that she posted the photo on Facebook. ?
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
And to the “white evangelical women” point, my niece’s mother is Jewish so, yeah, neither of them vote for Republicans.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: That’s wonderful! Voting is a powerful habit.
eclare
@Yarrow: Much, much easier to mow grass than maintain any kind of bed. Ask me how I know!
Mnemosyne
@Brickley Paiste:
Sounds good. You first. The other liberal men will be right behind you. Honest.
Corner Stone
Scott Pruitt is probably sweating bullets right now in rage, trying to figure out how he can get Kristin Mink fired or punished.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
I didn’t know how recent this recognition, the reburial, was. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Her list of awards and achievements is amazing. There is something about this one which is remarkable on a number of levels.
Betty Cracker
@msdc: I wasn’t aware of that statistic — good to know. IIRC, college-educated white women as a group gave the majority of their votes to the Democrat for the first time in 2016. It just wasn’t enough.
Ladyraxterinok
@Brickley Paiste: Your problem with Merkel is???
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I managed to find one of the good white men, but that’s why I keep him under wraps. Don’t want to have hordes of women beating our door down trying to lure him away. ?
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Corner Stone: Dude. I say this as gently as I’m capable of. Keep the word “voodoo”, and any other references to African diaspora religious practices, out of your undoubtedly well-meaning, but woefully untutored mouth, ESPECIALLY when linking said traditions to what you consider “occult” practices. I don’t care if you have a PHD in theology from Harvard, you are NOT qualified to go there.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: You must be a man. I went to an girls schools till grade 10. I harbor no such illusions of wonderfulness of the so called fairer sex.
schrodingers_cat
@Ladyraxterinok: My problem with Merkel is the austerity imposed on Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy by the EU at Germany’s behest.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: Simone Veil was just someone you felt privileged to share the same earth with. Like Mandela and all our contemporary heroes.
PS: oh wow yes, re the re-interment. It was the day before yesterday! (July 1.)
lollipopguild
@Yarrow: Has anybody seen them in the same room at the same time?
schrodingers_cat
There should be more women in politics and positions of power because we represent 50% of humanity not because we are extra wonderful or nice or whatever. That is paternalism of the worst kind.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed. She and Christine Lagarde are creepos there. But does not invalidate the other very real good Merkel does.
I don’t think history is going to be kind to them on the austerity policies.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
Corner Stone is back!
Baud is back!
The world is ever-so-gingerly righting itself again.
FlipYrWhig
@Dev Null: I’m wondering who Wheeler is talking about and if we’d recognize the name.
Dev Null
@Corner Stone:
[ROFL] Thanks for that…
The decades old mini-tree sure died … rotted out. And the wisteria out by the garage died, deader than a doornail.
Yeah, every now and again we get sprouts, so the seeds are around, and possibly not-dead roots.
But ours haven’t been invasive.
rikyrah
@Brickley Paiste:
UH HUH
UH HUH
I recognize the trolling…but, the truth is the truth.
53%
And no…it will NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
They didn’t have to vote like Black women.
But, even if they had voted like Latino women..
We’d be debating the latest antics of President Hillary Clinton.
Kay
The polite confrontation thing is interesting. It’s spontaneous, but they hit on something different to do.
These strange times call for new approaches. I’m thrilled people are coming up with them all on their own without the help or advice of the campaign industry.
We’ll get better at this. Learn how to fight it in a way that aligns with our values and is effective. Team Trump are so loathsome and so completely unchecked and out of control that necessity will birth invention :)
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: And birthing new conspiracy theories.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Agreed. I would trade the Orange Ogre for her any day.
Dev Null
@Yarrow:
Will pass this along to The Spousal Unit, thanks!
The seedling planted next to the house ten or fifteen years ago (after the mini-tree died) seems to be prospering, and indeed … the mini-tree trunk was about 20 feet distant, so you could be right. I don’t remember whether the garage wisteria was a new planting or an old one that fell on hard times … we’re trying again there, but have a long way to go.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
My younger sister texted me that Q poll yesterday with the huge gender gap and I said the same thing you’re saying “I no longer trust them”. She’s a feminist and she was pissed – well, as pissed as she gets – she texted back “come on” which is like SHOUTING for her, but I am disappointed in white women and I don’t trust them.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: May be we can all wear black bands to show that we are in mourning because Rs have hijacked our democracy with help from the Rs in Moscow.
Brachiator
@msdc:
I’ve seen data which dispute this. Also not sure how well these analyses account for voter suppression efforts.
Ultimately, this just means that get out the vote efforts are vital going forward.
Mnemosyne
@Dev Null:
Hm. Marcy Wheeler can be a little too skeptical for her own good, but she’s more honest than a lot of the pundits who refuse to change their views regardless of what new information comes out.
And she probably should have read what Adam had to say about the dossier being a deliberate mix of truth and fiction before deciding it must be all one or all the other.
Dev Null
@Corner Stone:
I have no idea whether I am making this up or heard / read it somewhere, but I have this notion that pre-AC wisteria was planted to shade the house. Our house being pre-AC, I’ve assumed that previous owners planted the wisteria to that end.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Willows loooooove water. Water is what he’s got.
Spider-Dan
@msdc: Black women went from 96-3 Obama in 2012 to 94-4 Hillary in 2016. White women went from 56-42 Romney in 2012 to 53-43 Trump in 2016. I don’t know that I would look at those numbers and come away with the conclusion that white women improved while black women got worse… especially when you consider that Trump got the same 53% of white women that McCain did in 2008. That is lowered expectations in overdrive.
SFAW
@Yarrow:
I don’t understand — what’s the opposite of “Tick tock, motherfuckers”?
Dev Null
@Corner Stone: Funny … that’s the first thought that occurred to me after reading the story.
dr. luba
@Spanky: Mine has died off, in parts, a few times. I planted it to cover a pergola and provide shade, and it mostly does that.
It has also escaped and is slowly engulfing an apricot tree.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I saw that yesterday. I was so confused(showing my age), but am marveling at linking technology with voter registration.
BRAVO!!
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I like the color markers. Red for ed, white for immigrants, pink for women. I think it gives the participants a feeling of solidarity. Pink is actually my least favorite color but it’s not all about me :)
I would prefer white, if that could be arranged. I’ll share with the immigrant advocates. Plenty of white tshirts to go around.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: I know. It is amazing.
We didn’t get jetpacks (yet), but talk about flooding the voting registrars.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
They’re trying to get rid of Poco, I’ll just bet.
?????
schrodingers_cat
@Spider-Dan: Comparing percentages is meaningless unless it is the percentage of the same exact number.
50% of 20 is 10
50% of 30 is 15
And they are not equal.
Kay
Confronting Pruitt is smart, too. Is there a less sympathetic Trumpster? He’s an absolute crook and the President and his fawning band of cult members are all supporting him as he rips off millions in taxpayer dollars.
It’s bad government. How many stories of graft and corruption and self-dealing have to surface before someone in the Republican Party does something? They’re accessories to robbery at this point. He’s stealing OUR money and benefiting his entire gross family. They all should be in arrested on whatever theft statute applies. They should be indicted and tried as thieves.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
In other news, I watched the trailer for “Newton” and I’m in. ? I’ll email you later today.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: The refusing to be awake more than 6 hours a day is becoming troubling.
Dev Null
@FlipYrWhig: Well, if a journalist, guessing we would. But EW doesn’t AFAICT actually say that her contact is a journalist, she says “had a journalistic relationship with”, which is sufficiently tortured English that either a) she’s misdirecting, and the person really is a journalist, or b) the person isn’t a journalist. Option b) seems more likely to me, but I’m just guessing.
Her post is so far beyond normal that I am stunned. She appears to be of the opinion that she might be targeted with physical violence … and although I know her only through her blog and reporting, she seems to be one tough cookie.
If she is concerned with physical violence …
Belafon
@rikyrah: 53% of white women who showed up to vote, which works out to about 30% or so of voting age women. There’s a lot of white women who weren’t paying attention or thought someone else would take care of it. Now they’ve discovered that’s not the case.
Now, that 53% of those who voted for Trump are the kind that show up for every election, so we will need a lot of the other women to show up, but it does look like a lot more of them have found out what’s on the line.
trollhattan
@Kay:
It’s not just bad government; hell, it’s not even non-government; it’s virtual government arson. The weasley little fucker is skilled enough to destroy the organization he’s in charge of whilst lining his pockets and enriching industry. It’s how I imagined a President Cruz governing the whole mess.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
All around better people.
What a unique idea. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, it’s just such a novel concept, given the last few eons.
Spanky
@Kay:
Well, it feels like there’s an actual completion going on amongst themselves. For me, I’ll go with the possum queen.
Corner Stone
@Kay:
Did you see where CNBC reported the Trump family earned $500M last year? There is nothing any underling Cabinet member can do that’s gonna top the Top Grifter. I bet Tom Price is really stewing in his sauce about now.
trollhattan
@Dev Null: Ours is on the property line and covers a pergola next door, so shade aplenty there. It does give us morning shade since it’s on the east side but it’s too close and adjacent to our electricity service, wrapping tendrils around the snorkel and slooooly trying to pull it away from the house. I chop them back every week or two and they’re back in hours.
It loves heat. Heat, we’ve got. No way to know for sure but it’s at least half a century old and perhaps older than that, given ours is a ’20s home.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I just saw the trailer myself. Looks promising. Rajkumar Rao (Newton), Sanjay Mishra (Newton’s mentor) and Pankaj Tripathi (The security forces dude in camo fatigues) all do good work. Dialogs between Tripathi and Rao were crackling in Hindi.
Dev Null
@Mnemosyne:
Never safe to speak for someone else, but I think that “a deliberate mix of truth and fiction” is exactly what she thinks the Steele dossier is. Not to put too fine a point on it, she’s said as much in past posts.
As one of the regulars at EW.net says in comments, “always doubt”.
I quoted Feynman here a couple of days ago to the same end: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest one to fool.”
(I also babbled about “respect”; as that California pine tree said during Reagan’s Admin, “chop me down before I kill again.”)
EW doubts.
Admittedly, most of the time I have no idea what she’s saying, but still …
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Raked in. No way they earned it.
Dev Null
@Belafon: I didn’t trace this thread back, so I might be misfiring, but there’s reason to believe that Comey’s announcement a week before the election supressed Dem votes across the board.
Dev Null
@Spanky: Yeah, why choose one when you can have so many? Zinke is just as awful as Pruitt, he’s just quieter. And then Ross and Cruella de Vil and the Possum Queen …
NotMax
Alain must be tinkering under the hood. Recent Comments playing peek-a-boo again.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Well, clone him! Selfish.
Dev Null
@trollhattan: Remind me not to fertilize ours. :-)
We go out a few times a year to cut back ours. Fortunately it’s not near any vital services, except, er, well, the house.
Repurposing that chestnut of Southern Gothic fiction:
“The house gave a lurch as the wisteria enveloped the west wing.”
The mini-tree that died had a diameter of 6-8 inches. No idea what age that implies, but the house is old.
Gex
@Kay: I suspect disturbing their dinner, no matter how polite the words and how civil the tone, will still violate the civility rule that is only applied to the left.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: And the worst thing about it is that the longer the graft, corruption, etc. is allowed to flourish unchecked – hell, encouraged – by the GOP, the harder it is going to be, and the longer it is going to take, to root that shit out. Do we really want the US to look like Mexico – where government corruption is endemic? I mean, it’s great that there’s this populist there who just got elected on a platform of cleaning up the corruption, but that shit has been entrenched in their political system for *decades* – how much is he going to be able to do? I’m scared we are going to get to that point, and I am *furious* at the right-wingers who, cynically or otherwise, have done such a number on the American populace – getting them to believe that our government is *inherently* corrupt – and that therefore there *are* no ethical standards that apply, unless you’re a Democrat, of course – and our media, focusing on someone like Hillary Clinton, who actually *is* squeaky-clean, and raising “clouds of concern” about her, instead of Trump, who is openly, loudly, brazenly, grotesquely corrupt, and makes no bones about it. Which is apparently JUST FINE, because he’s a Republican! How are we going to come back from this point?
Sister Golden Bear
@Mnemosyne: Oddly enough there’s a not insignificant number of “late life
transitioned” (i.e. transitioned in their late 30s or older) trans women who are conservative-to-RWNJs. (As are most
chasers“admirers.”)Seemingly a life-term is hard for them to unlearn, and like the homocons they seem to think their privilege means they won’t be targeted. Which I find baffling, because transitioning to living as a man to living as a wife was definitely a “wokening” experience for me, even though I was already pretty socially conscious.
OT: Thank you again everyone for your support yesterday. Still tough, but doing much better today. At least it’s finally a chance to catch my breath after the last six weeks of non-stop crisises.
Gex
@Calouste: Like this?
Dev Null
@Miss Bianca:
Well, taking control of the House in the midterms would be a good start.
As Rikyrah said in comments at Anne Laurie’s open thread post this morning, Dems don’t have a good way of keeping corruption in the news as matters stand today.
Mel
@Brachiator: Quakers.
?
Litlebritdifrnt
@trollhattan: Never mind the seeds, the runners are what always scared me. I had a wisteria planted at my front door and yes it took off over the roof and snaked its way along the front of the house to the sycamore tree on the corner of the house. But then it continued down the side of the house, all the way into the back yard when I found it there I actually traced the runner all the way back to the main plant at the front door.
Mel
@Yarrow: Hahahaha, I say (while weeping and debating whether or not I can sell a kidney to pay for new porch gutters).
Miss Bianca
@Sister Golden Bear: You know, speaking as someone who has been trans-curious since a tomboy youth, I have to say that I honestly *don’t* understand the appeal of transitioning from man to woman, precisely *because* of the rampant misogyny in our culture. In other words, I have to acknowledge that part of the appeal of transitioning the other way, for *me*, is *because* of the social power conferred on males – it always enraged me that the message I was getting from my society was that there were certain things guys got to do that girls couldn’t, and it was all related to gender privilege. And this was while I was coming of age during second-wave feminism!
Oh, yeah – and because as a person involved in theater from a very young age, I couldn’t help but notice that there were *way* more parts for men than women – and proportionately fewer male actors than female actresses. I confess I still sometimes have fantasies of transitioning precisely in order to take advantage of this fact! Hollywood bit-part action, here I come! ; )
Glad to hear that you are doing better. You got handed the world’s shittiest birthday present, yesterday.
Mel
@Yarrow: This is similar to what I’ve been seeing in my neck of the woods as well. A lot of older, rural women who have voted Repub for years (out of habit, reflex, family pressure, belief – seems like their reasons vary) are saying enough’s enough. Sadly, though, it’s less the attacks on women’s rights that have them fired up, and more the rumblings about job losses and potential layoffs due to tariffs, combined with the fact of babies and toddlers in prison camps.
Not surprisingly, though, the super churchy women are mostly hardline for Trump because they think he’s “pro-family values”. Nothing like a dose of delusion, eh?
Brachiator
@Mel:
Dose of Delusion. Sounds like a perfume that Ivanka would market.
Rob Lll
@Mnemosyne:
My partner and I saw that movie last year at a special AMPAS screening and we loved it. I was very disappointed it didn’t get more attention. It’s a wonderful film. For an American viewer, it’s a useful and heartening reminder that people all around the world have faced down situations much worse than Drumpf — with much less in the way of material resources and institutional stability.
No One You Know
@Corner Stone: Have you ever worked in mostly female environments?
IMO,power corrupts without regard to gender, although the dynamic terms toward the Mean Girl whose coterie encourages the humiliation of other girls they disapprove of. I’ve known Mean Girl types to find of perfectly acceptable to encourage, and laugh at, violence towards a girl they don’t like.
We need both.
Mel
@Sister Golden Bear: Thinking of you and of your Mom.
Please take extra good care of yourself today. Sending you hugs,
No One You Know
@No One You Know: Damnit, where did the edit button go?
“The dynamic tends toward…”
Sigh.
Mel
@Brachiator: I am already picturing the horrifying commercials for it.
Brain bleach, stat!!!
The Ancient Randonneur
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Not if the remark is directed at someone sealion-ing a thread.
Mel
@Brachiator: First response comment got eaten. Second time’s the charm?:
I can already picture the horrifying commercials for it.
Brain bleach, stat!!!
Mnemosyne
@Sister Golden Bear:
There sometimes seems to be an odd whiff of misogyny from some of the people who are tied in to conservative politics and beliefs. Like they think being a woman is so much easier — I’m going to do that and live on easy street! And then they start living as women and discover that, yeah, men tend to treat women like shit.
The specific one I’m thinking of was a transwoman during GamerGate who didn’t realize how poorly women can be treated until she spoke up about how stupid the whole GamerGate thing was and the death and rape threats started pouring into her email box. She had thought that ciswomen were just being whiny until it happened to her and it snapped her eyes wide open. ?
Oh, and if I say stupid shit about trans issues at some point, feel free to call me out and tell me I just said something stupid. I keep up as best I can, but obviously I’m not immersed in it like actual transpeople are.
hitchhiker
I look forward to many, many more interventions with Republican officials.
Corner Stone
@No One You Know:
Not mostly female environments, but where 3 of the most powerful 5 people in charge were women. I did my job, didn’t play favorites and generally killed myself to meet their demanding standards. But they had all achieved their status through sheer brainpower, overwhelming hard work/dedication, and no hesitancy to cut someone at the slightest hint. But those are very specific people who rose through a very, very male dominated category. All the catty/mean girl shit was lower level and I didn’t have anything to do with that nonsense.
I personally would usually prefer to work somewhere that I reported to a woman. Much easier to get a clear expectation set.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Mnuchin.
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca:
Iraq, not Mexico. Bribery is going to be the new way to get government services on time. Because once the government destroys all those union jobs for cost savings, the taxpayers will be expected to make up the difference if they want to get anywhere. And until the unions are back, there’s nothing that can stop the slide that we’re heading down.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
This is not the first time Mexico voted for a reformist. They’ve tried to at least make it look like they were trying. I have first hand info that it didn’t work but they did seem to be serious. That was 35+ yrs ago.
Mel
@Ruckus: I wonder what would have happened if de la Madrid’s plan /policies would have had more time to come to fruition. There were a lot of interim problems as a result of his policies, but there were also some signs of stabilization and forward positive motion esp, towards the last quarter of the 1980s.
The massive amount of governmental corruption that reformers were up against, coupled with trying to deal with the ecomonic fallout of the crumbling oil industry there certainly made for slow forward motion with a million enormous roadblocks to try and overcome.
Ruckus
@Mel:
I had dealings with customers in the Mexican food industry and they had pricing set below cost. They just bribed officials to look the other way, because they weren’t going to pay customers to eat their products. IOW nothing changed.
Mel
@Ruckus: I was teaching international students in the early 1990s. That echoes what a lot of the Mexican students I worked with said.
Lots of small to mid-sized businesses and family businesses going under, and lots of impact on disposable income and employment, deepening the hits people had already taken in the 70s and very early 80s.
People who weren’t wealthy didn’t have much of a chance of making it in the interim, because there was really no safety net as part of the overall plan. That’s a recipe for massive problems in any economy, as far as I’m concerned.
I’m all for a basic income plan. It stabilizes economies, and makes policy change feasible and survivable. Plus, there’s the issue of basic human dignity. I think that even the kindest people and the most forward thinking politicians don’t get how important that is unless they’ve personally experienced trying to navigate the systems in place when health or financial disaster strikes.