JUST IN: Virginia lawmakers have approved a resolution ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment — becoming the 38th state of 38 required to do so.
— NPR (@NPR) January 15, 2020
Of course, nothing will happen while Trump & McConnell are in charge. That can be changed, too.
(I’m of the conviction that, when it comes to Chief Justice Roberts, one should remember Finley Peter Dunne’s wise words from the last Gilded Age: “The Constitution may or may not follow the flag, but the Supreme Court follows the Election returns.”)
? Both chambers of the Virginia legislature adopted the Equal Rights Amendment this morning.
Virginia becomes the 38th state to ratify the ERA, putting the amendment above the 3/4th threshold.
Dems just took control of VA government for the first time in 26 years last week.
— Taniel (@Taniel) January 15, 2020
Sets up a legal showdown, with the DOJ defending the position it's too late. https://t.co/zRmFSugnX5 pic.twitter.com/B8QvlPBlx6
— Taniel (@Taniel) January 15, 2020
Today is a huge day for women and the Equal Rights Amendment.
Please watch and share this viral doc by the great @KenBurns for some history on the ERA and why all eyes are on Virginia to be the last state needed to ratify the amendment. #ERANow pic.twitter.com/gbSZ9jeEl2
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) January 15, 2020
I want to send out a special tweet to @Senatorspearman who resurrected the Equal Rights Amendment. I love you, Pat. Thank you. https://t.co/x6RqJhKXTW
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) January 15, 2020
Butter Emails
Meanwhile a significant fraction of Rose Twitter is attempting to shove itself up a snake’s anus.
mali muso
Proud to be a Democratic voter in Virginia!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Speaking of Virginia:
Virginia governor declares state of emergency following militia threats over gun reforms
I’ve read articles of militias forming around the state as well. They claim to be non-threatening, but I’m not so sure. Any BJers in Virginia, be safe
Baud
No difference between the parties!
Martin
My understanding is that Congress is free to retroactively extend the deadline for ratification, so it’s entirely up to them whether this becomes an amendment or not.
mrmoshpotato
@Butter Emails: Do I even want to know?
Fair Economist
My understanding is that Congress can change the ratification deadline without the President, so only McConnell stands in the way.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
When did you become the Rose Twitter candidate, Baud? You’re stealing Bernie’s thunder
Kent
And then today we also have this
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ep5t7i/a_christian_high_school_student_in_kentucky_was/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
This truly is great news! It sucks McConnell stands in the way. I hope McTurtle gets knocked out of the Senate on his shell like a hockey puck this November
Roger Moore
@Martin:
AFAIK, this is the first time any of the amendments with deadlines included has reached the ratification goal after the deadline expired, so it’s not settled law. I would expect the Supreme Court to rule that the deadline is binding and can’t be changed without going back and redoing the ratification. That makes sense to me politically- this Supreme Court is not going to want the ERA to pass- and as the most reasonable interpretation of the Constitution.
Kent
@Martin: so it won’t then. Because McConnell?
Butter Emails
@mrmoshpotato:
Some of Bernie’s supporters on Twitter aren’t happy with Warren due to her confirmation of remarks he was alleged to have made about a woman winning the Presidency. Naturally, they have proclaimed #neverwarren and flooded her Twitter with snake emojis.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Shouldn’t we be calling them Snake Twitter now?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Kent: “They don’t have meetings about rainbows.”
mrmoshpotato
@Butter Emails: Fucking cult.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And they think this makes their case that crazies with guns are NOT a problem in society?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Why’s that? Because they eat their own tail metaphorically?
Butter Emails
@Baud: that’s not really fair to snakes. They already carry enough baggage with that whole associated with Satan thing.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Snake Emoji refers to a person who talks badly about others, comparing his or her words to the venom of a snake.
Roger Moore
@Butter Emails:
I don’t trust any of those Twitter hashtags. Somebody has already presented evidence #NeverWarren was seeded by Russian Bots, and I would not be at all surprised to learn many of the alleged Bernie supporters spreading it are either those same bots or Republican ratfucking operatives.
Kent
Speaking of culture wars, we need more good stuff like this ad: https://youtu.be/yoglNFN5-Js which just dropped by the Lincoln Project. Which is apparently not even a Dem group but an never-Trump GOP group that is putting out better stuff than 95% of the stuff I see from Dems.
Baud
@Kent:
Man, expelled from a Christian School for celebrating God’s promise that there will never be another flood. Harsh.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
This makes their case that fuck you libs, you aren’t getting our guns. They don’t give a damn about whether or not crazies with guns are a problem in society; they want their idols to Moloch.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
It’s how extremists think, I guess. I can’t think of any other reason for open carry then to intimidate and threaten others
Martin
@Roger Moore: I wouldn’t be so sure.
Since a deadline is not a constitutional mandate, the deadline is only meaningful to Congress, the party that set it. They can presumably choose to revise it.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore:
I would think that is the correct prediction as well.
But it’s a good, and important, day.
And an incentive to not put time limits in Amendments. If 202 years is good enough for the 27th Amendment, then time limits are a bad idea. Time limits give opponents of good amendments reason to run out the clock.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
That fits them to a tee
Martin
@Baud: Look, Kentucky built that big fucking ark, and the tourists just aren’t coming. Flood is really their only way to recover that money.
PJ
@Roger Moore: Over the weekend, before the snake emoji and #neverwarren became a thing, almost all of the Bernie supporters on Twitter I saw (not that I sought them out) were declaring that Warren was a liar and had betrayed Bernie, notwithstanding that what Warren alleged was entirely consistent with things Bernie had said in the past. That Bernie might have lied or been mistaken, or just had seen their conversation differently, was not a possibility.
I don’t doubt that there are bots and/or Russian trolls spreading the #neverwarren thing, but it couldn’t happen if the vocal core of Sanders’ supporters didn’t start it and repeat it.
ETA: Bernie could tell his supporters to stop spreading this crap, and the similar crap they spread, and instead of using their energy to tell other candidates, and those candidates’ supporters, how much they hate them, to focus on inclusivity and finding common ground and emphasize that, whoever the Democratic candidate is, that person will be the best chance to defeat Trump, but he hasn’t done that, and there is no indication from his past record that he will ever do that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
@Another Scott:
Would you put it past this Court to try to argue otherwise though? I suppose Roberts wouldn’t, since he cares so much about his damn historical reputation that’s going to inevitably be in tatters
Martin
@Kent: It might. I’m not quite up on which hill the GOP wants to die on today. I suspect there’s enough GOP votes to support it, provided McConnell is willing to bring it to the floor.
I would not bet against Nancy forcing his hand, though. She can make a big fucking deal out of this and make it very clear to 150 million american women that McConnell is the only impediment.
Butter Emails
@Roger Moore:
It’s almost certainly all of the above.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
But the deadline is part of the text of the amendment. I don’t see how you can argue that the amendment is now part of the Constitution, when part of the amendment says the process by which it was ratified is invalid. And it doesn’t make sense that Congress could vote to change an amendment after it’s reached its ratification goal; after all, the new text isn’t what those states voted for. In any case, it takes a 2/3 majority in each House of Congress to propose an amendment, so even if you accept that Congress can amend it after the states have voted on it, you’ll need at least that many votes to make the change. Good luck with that.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, that’s the thing. It’s not clear that USSC has any authority to rule on it. That’s sort of the point of the Amendment process – it’s a check by Congress and the states against the courts by explicitly making legal or illegal things that the courts may declare as the opposite.
The President has no role in the process – it’s not a bill they sign. It’s not clear the courts do either. I think Congress and the states simply proclaim that the Constitution is amended by virtue of their constitutional authority.
Kent
@Roger Moore: Just saying. I don’t think a bunch of open-carry crazies carrying ARs and descending on suburban VA is really going to make the case to suburban voters that we don’t need any gun control.
Betty Cracker
@PJ: That’s consistent with what I’ve seen too. Trolls exploit and amplify existing schisms. Sanders hired 2016 Bernie or Bust loudmouths to represent his 2020 campaign, so it’s fair to assume he’s fine with what’s happening now.
Kent
Was sitting in class today during conference/study hall period, looking out at the students on their phones and wondering how many 16 year olds around the country were madly typing snakes into twitter rather than work on their pre-Calc homework like they were supposed to be doing. It would be a very 16-year old Bernie-bot thing to do.
SiubhanDuinne
Holy fuck, that mobster pinstripe suit McConnell is wearing! He looks like a refugee from a 1940s gangster movie.
Edward G. Robinson, a lonely nation turns its eyes to you.
ETA: Five-inch wide lapels and everything. Jesus.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
At this point, their goal isn’t to convince people to support gun rights; it’s to scare people into being unwilling to interfere with gun ownership. These aren’t politicians trying to sell their program; they’re terrorists trying to intimidate people into going along with their demands.
Kent
Honestly, I gotta say McCain, and even to some extent Bush, did a better job of reigning in their crazies than Bernie does. And that’s saying something.
Trump, of course, is a whole different animal. He is leading the pack and starting all the shit like a gleeful 13 year old middle school boy with his first phone.
Martin
@Roger Moore: But they’ve done that once before. When they extended the deadline in 1982, 35 states had already ratified it. And there is a rescission process that has been used for amendments that allow states to reverse a previous ratification, so states could at any time state that they think the process has ended by reversing their ratification.
Coleman v Miller established that it’s up to Congress to decide for itself if the amendment is still valid after any period of time after introduction (whether it has a time limit or not), that it was a political question. So even after a ¾ ratification by states, Congress could reject the amendment as having outlived its utility and force the process to start over. Or, like with the Madison amendment declare that 200 years later it was still relevant.
That’s not to say that USSC can’t reverse Coleman, but USSC has already weighed in on this and said that Congress gets to decide.
Kent
@Roger Moore: I understand completely what they are doing. I have some of these types in my family. I just don’t think it is going to work. I rather expect it is going to backfire enormously. Especially when everyone sees how pathetic and few they are.
Martin
@Kent: Yeah, well, pre-calc is a hot mess of a subject area, so I support their boycott.
natem
Tom Nichols is a silly man who no one should take seriously.
https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1217575135256940545?s=20
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Edward G. Robinson was a nice Jewish boy who was all in favor of civil rights and got himself gray-listed for his trouble.
George Raft, on the other hand …
H.E.Wolf
Glad to hear the news from Virginia re: the ERA.
One of my friends had a bumper sticker on her car in the 1970s:
“E.R.A.
Equal Rights. Amen.”
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: But some states did rescind their ratification, and I think they’re being included in that count. So this is ignoring that as well.
mrmoshpotato
@natem: Oh Tom. You silly bastard.
Jay
@Roger Moore:
there are also a bunch of towns, counties and “Constitutional” Sheriffs in VA that have “declared” themselves to be “Second Amendment Sanctuaries”, one County, after recieving some public push back, amended their Declaration, to point out they wern’t providing funding, uniforms and weapons for a 2nd Amendment Militia, just training.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Ah, you are correct. I thought the 38 was beyond those that rescinded their ratification. That would put us at 34, then.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: I’m sure Wilmer loves his cult, especially since he can deny their actions being his fault while doing nothing to stop their cultish behavior.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kent:
“Reining in their crazies.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: They already changed the ratification deadline once, and IIRC it survived court challenge. There’s also the problem(extra-constitutional) that some states have rescinded their ratification.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I always heard EGR was a great guy in person. It’s just that film persona that stuck to him.
(Had no idea he was Jewish.)
PJ
@Martin: It would be much better if this Supreme Court did not have a say in the matter. If Democrats have a majority in the Senate and House in 2021, it would behoove them to pass a law allowing ratification of the ERA whenever (i.e., no time limit), and making a push in the remaining states for ratification.
PJ
@SiubhanDuinne: He was also an art collector with a good eye, and apparently had amassed quite a collection by the time he died.
MoxieM
I hope Phyllis Schlafly keeps spinning in her grave, straight to hell. Of course, she’s likely there already. Fuck ‘er (them)
Betty Cracker
@Jay: The all-white, all-male, all-Republican board of county commissioners in my stupid Florida county designated this place a “Second Amendment sanctuary” a while back too. The same group of yahoos attracted global ridicule a few months ago for rejecting the library director’s request to replace the library’s existing paper subscriptions to the NYT with a cheaper digital subscription that could have been accessed online by all cardholders. I live among the deeply stupid.
prostratedragon
Edward G. was born in Bucharest. I’ve wondered whether his serious interest in art was played off for Scarlet Street, which has references to Diego Rivera and Delacroix “The Cashier.”
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yep — born Emmanuel Goldstein in Russia. He got his start in Yiddish theater in New York. He was actually much more versatile than people remember, like as the insurance investigator in “Double Indemnity.”
(ETA: prostratedragon probably remembers Robinson’s birthplace correctly.)
Speaking of New York-born actors of that era, Jimmy Cagney was fluent in Yiddish because he picked it up from his friends in NYC when he was a kid. You can see YouTube clips of it from a movie he did called “Taxi!” in the early 1930s.
Cagney said it came in really handy during contract negotiations when the studio or theater heads would talk amongst themselves in Yiddish and assume he didn’t understand them. ?
zhena gogolia
@natem:
He was particularly concerned about Maxine Waters smiling.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: Bacall and Bogart were great friends with EGR, and Bacall said he was a total sweetheart despite the gruff exterior. My favorite anecdote about him was from her autobiography. He walked her down the aisle when she married Bogart, and she says when the pianist started playing the music while she was still in the powder room adjusting her outfit, EGR yelled, “Wait! She’s still in da can!” :)
Steeplejack (phone)
Comic relief—epic Twitter thread:
prostratedragon
They also do Bohemian Rhapsody:
Squid696
@Roger Moore: The deadline for ratification is not in the text of the Amendment.
Kent
@Steeplejack (phone): Yeah, I’m a science teacher not a English teacher. I also never get “compose” vs “comprise” right either.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: There were some local sheriffs who were playing at that stunt here in WA State when I think the Dem Attorney General opined that they could be held personally liable by a court of law if they refused to implement red flag gun laws and someone got killed or injured. They quietly started doing their jobs. The threat of a slam-dunk multi-million dollar lawsuit tends to focus the mind.
randy khan
@Kent:
I saw this on the book of faces, and found myself wondering if any of the people who are so upset about rainbows remember the bit in Exodus about the rainbow being a sign of the covenant between God and Noah.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: It will all take care of itself, no need to worry or so I was told this morning.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
It’s the classic problem: don’t make threats unless you’re willing and able to follow through on them. That’s true even when the threats are implicit. If you expect people to be smart enough to figure out you’re threatening them, you can also expect them to be smart enough to notice you didn’t follow through.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The Diary of
Anne FrankSmith & Wessondebbie
A little late, Pandora.
And of course, Warren’s peeps are already on it!
Baud
@debbie:
Unlike 2016, people are pushing back.
Kent
@Roger Moore: Yeah. and a bunch of pot-bellied anemic white guys in cammo wife-beaters strutting around with ARs slung on their shoulders is really going to win the suburban mom swing vote like my wife who decide elections in states like VA. Especially when they get lost and wander into Target to assert their gun rights as they are wont to do in Texas.
debbie
@Baud:
Imagine, someone learned from the Obama campaign!
SiubhanDuinne
@PJ: I feel as though I knew that once upon a time. Interesting guy.
Martin
In case you were worried that American voters were the stupidest on earth, Australia has you covered.
It’s okay because it’s one of the few nature reserves in Australia not currently on fire. Oh, and the mine will destroy the reserve, so it’s likely to never catch on fire ever again.
Kent
Actually it will, once people start voting. We are at the absolute worst part of the political campaign. When it all seems so desperately urgent but not one vote has actually been cast.
By the time of the Iowa cacuses in 3 weeks the snake thing will seem like last century given how many new crimes Trump will commit between now and then.
VeniceRiley
This is much more of a fun read than the blogfather’s assertion that sexism isn’t important right now. It makes me feel hopeful, unlike that one.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
He’s another one who never won an Oscar.
Kent
@Martin: Sometimes Australia seems like what the US would be like without the blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants around to tone down the crazy.
randy khan
So, first, if you see a photo of the amendment being carried to the Virginia State Senate, the woman doing it is Charniele Herring, a great progressive voice, the first black and first woman to be Majority Leader of the House of Delegates, and the first black and first woman to chair the House’s Courts of Justice Committee. She’s also a friend, and my wife and I have known her since she was in high school. I couldn’t be more proud of her, and I only can imagine how her mother, a long-time member of NOW, feels.
On the question of whether the ratification is effective or not, and the related question of whether Congress might be able to pass an extension even though the earlier deadlines had passed:
2. I don’t think there’s any real chance an extension will even get a floor vote in the Senate, so to a certain extent it’s likely that arguments about it are moot. (I’ve had this discussion with a someone who has been working on ERA for a long time. She says “How could anyone vote against the ERA?” and I say, more or less, “Have you looked at the Republican Party lately?”) But even if it did pass, I’m not sure a court would accept it. This is mostly because it will feel like it’s an attempt to revive a dead amendment, and I see courts as saying that the way to do that is to pass the whole thing again. The other issue is that, for lack of a better way to put it, the timing is off – since Virginia has ratified the amendment, it’s an attempt to retroactively make the ratification effective.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I think Bacall’s autobiographies are among the best I’ve ever read.
zhena gogolia
Funny tweet about the CT GOP trying to pretend Hyde doesn’t belong in the Party.
Feathers
Way to go VA! I grew up there and remember my mom heading down to Richmond for the ERA rallies at the time. So glad to see this wrong finally righted. There were boycotts at the time against states that hadn’t ratified. Would be good to bring that back.
As to the debate:
So the Berners are stealing a meme Kim Kardashian used to attack Taylor Swift, which now appears to be used by both Taylor stans and hators to refer to Taylor? If you asked me how the 2020 primaries were going to go the conflation of Elizabeth Warren and Taylor Swift wasn’t going to be it. Maybe Tay still has the giant snake she rode around the arena on the Reputation tour available for Liz to borrow.
The rose tweets I saw this morning had two talking points:
1) Couldn’t be true because Bernie had encouraged Warren to run in 2016. Reply: Foolishness. Very common for a woman to be encouraged to do something and then attacked when she does that thing.
2) Impossible because Bernie campaigned so hard for Hillary in 2016. Reply: Dudes-Across-The-Spectrum, we were there. You’ve got to be kidding.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
LOL. I know I read Bacall’s autobiography when it first came out, so I must have known that story at some point, but had forgotten it.
Jay
@Kent:
the “goal” is not to get a bunch of cosplaying ammosexuals to march around in public,
the “goal” is to get a “lone wolf” to kill someone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Feathers:
My god. My god.
I feel so old I’m gonna go put on a cardigan and brew up a nice cup of Sanka
ETA: The fact that Sanders can’t say, “My intention was to point out the misogyny we saw on display so much in 2016, from internet memes to the awful shirts and buttons sold at trump rallies. If I expressed myself poorly, as I sometimes do when angry or excited, I apologize to my friend Elizabeth.” The way he, and his supporters, respond to even a suggestion of a minor fuck up, is with indignant outrage. Remind you of any other political cult? Both the leader and the followers?
Martin
Ken Jennings is my every day.
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack (phone): Oh that’s always fun. Ugh.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: I guess Ken Jennings never saw a picture of LA* in the late 40’s when the oldest Boomers were in potty training.
*Couldn’t see a building 4 blocks away due to the smog.
Yutsano
@mrmoshpotato: Could be worse. Could be a crying infant. The. Whole. Flight.
Kent
@Jay: Because that would make the anti-gun control case stronger?
I tend to think that gun freaks with at least two brain cells understand that would backfire hugely like it did with Gabby Gifford.
What they really want to do is intimidate Dems into thinking they are going to lose at the ballot box due to the massive wave of NRA voters who are going to turn out. That’s the game they are used to winning. But those numbers are shrinking every day in suburban states like VA and most other states that aren’t 100% rural like Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska.
debbie
@Feathers:
Wasn’t he doing that in exchange for DNC funds to pay down the debt from his own campaign?
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Couldn’t see the buildings flying in either. I think LA’s brown smudge sky was worse than NYC’s.
Feathers
@SiubhanDuinne: And me with my copy of Parish and Marill’s The Cinema of Edward G. Robinson right here.
I’m a huge fan of his noir films, with Night Has a Thousand Eyes as my fave. An undersung Cornell Woolrich masterpiece.
Haven’t looked through this book in a while. It has a section on his theater work with a listing of his plays, roles and what theater. Also a great picture of him in tights for The Firebrand. Apparently he also go-go danced with Raquel Welch in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood era.
Jim Parish
On the subject of EGR: I remember the shock I felt watching Double Indemnity. Robinson’s the good guy, and the villain is… Fred McMurray. (At that time I had only seen him in My Three Sons and a handful of Disney movies.)
Jay
Yutsano
@debbie:
Adjusted for accuracy.
Bill Arnold
@Butter Emails:
I like snakes. And:
debbie
@Jim Parish:
I love the playing against type. Also, Henry Fonda as the sociopath in Once Upon a Time in the West and Charles Bronson as the good guy.
debbie
@Yutsano:
Thanks.
Jay
@Kent:
the Ammosexuals do not see themselves as “gun nuts”, or guys with too many guns, or “outdoorsmen” with a weird fetish.
they see themselves as “footsoldiers, Officers and gentlemen” in the “Culture Wars”. That’s why “Threepers” show up packing to protect TERFs and God Botherers from violent “Antifa” and Drag Queens at libraries Drag Queen Storytime events for small children.
Feathers
@Yutsano: What’s crazy is that we still haven’t seen Bernie’s complete tax returns. The DNC seriously needs to make that a requirement for debates before the Iowa primary. I can’t believe he’s getting away with this. Somebody needs to ask for this pledge at the next debate. Look at how much shit we are dealing with because we don’t know the president’s business interests.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: LA’s geography makes the smog worse, it gets trapped by the mountains if there’s an onshore wind and often an inversion layer traps it closer to the ground. It’s much, much better than it used to be.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: Same! I didn’t even go looking for Bacall’s autobiography, even though I’m a big fan; I stumbled across it at a beach rental many years ago. Just fascinating stuff and well written.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I can think of two possible rejoinders to this:
joel hanes
@Kent:
I also never get “compose” vs “comprise” right either.
It’s simple: compose can always be replaced by “make up”, while comprise can always be replaced by “include”
The (list of all parts) compose the assembly.
The assembly comprises (list of some parts)
Chyron HR
Point: The senate could let the ERA stand so that fat fuck in the White House can go “I made this!”
Jay
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/bill-barr-no-future-counter-intel-investigations-into-presidential-campaigns-without-my-approval/
frosty
@debbie:
NYC lucked out because of topography and weather. I had an air pollution prof years ago who said that if NYC had LA’s weather everyone would be dead in a week from the smog.
ETA: Or what @?BillinGlendaleCA: said
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: LOL that’s great. Well done, Senator Professor supporter!
It’s also hilarious that “Wilmer’s organizers want it to stop.” You want your cult of sexists to stop pestering a woman? Adorable.
TomatoQueen
@randy khan: Nice name drop. Charniele’s my rep, too & what a day this is for her. After 40 or so years, I’m going to continue to hope that any opposition at all, no matter the source, will be met with the most ginormous collective eyeroll. Get ‘er done. Make Phyllis twitch some more.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA
Dolt 45, Yurtle the Turtle and the rest of the ReThugs havn’t managed to kill this yet:
https://www.epa.gov/history/historical-photos-and-images
Jay
@frosty:
not so much
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/548360
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s amazing how much better it’s gotten in the 30 years or so I’ve lived in the area. When I first moved to Pasadena, you routinely couldn’t see Mount Wilson because of the smog*. Now, it’s hard to imagine not being able to see the mountains, and I think it’s a bad day if I can’t see all the way to Long Beach from my balcony.
*For those who don’t know LA geography, Pasadena is set at the foot of Mt. Wilson; it’s certainly doable to walk from Pasadena to the Mt. Wilson trailhead and hike to the top.
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: Nope. Babies cry; it’s their thing. Non-stop mindless chatter, ugh. ?
Roger Moore
@Jay:
Shorter AG Barr: We’re going to politicize the process of investigating campaigns.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
I literally snorted reading that. Though FBI Director Christopher Wray does not seem on the surface to be notably corrupt, and has been criticized by DJT. (Though: “Wray acted as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s personal attorney during the Bridgegate scandal.”)
Roger Moore
@frosty:
Assuming nobody did anything about it. When the smog in LA got bad enough it was really dangerous, people decided they needed to do something about it. It took a while, but they figured out what was causing it and took steps to get it under control. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s a minor annoyance now instead of a genuine threat. If New York had LA’s weather and topography, they would have started to work on smog a lot sooner.
ETA: I am regularly amused when my Chinese coworkers praise LA air quality compared to the air back in China. It’s not that I doubt the Chinese air quality is terrible. It’s just that “the air is so much cleaner in LA” was not something I ever thought I would hear when I moved here.
mrmoshpotato
@Chyron HR: It would be really weird to see a pussy-grabbing pile of shit try to sound out words about how he’s tremendous at equal rights.
Oh wait, that encapsules the last three years. It’s definitely going to happen.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: There’s a video of Hyde shooting a mask of Hillary. Seems like a real gem…
zhena gogolia
Just set up my monthly contribution to Sara Gideon.
Jay
@Roger Moore:
New York did have the same smog conditions as LA. All large cities did. What New York had was a couple hundred more years of being “used to it”.
In 1975, there were months in New York when the Chrysler Building couldn’t be seen from the Chanin Building.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/548360
zhena gogolia
@Jim Parish:
It’s brilliant casting. They’re brilliant. (Barbara too, of course.)
artem1s
@Kent:
A Christian high school
Time to challenge the constitutionality of voucher programs.
Ben Cisco
@zhena gogolia: I saw a comment in another thread directed to you and wanted to send my own “Happy Founders Day” wishes.
zhena gogolia
@Jay:
Oh, that is good news. If anyone pays any attention, that is.
zhena gogolia
@Ben Cisco:
Thanks! I had no idea what that was about.
ETA: Rather, I did figure out what he was talking about, but this holiday was news to me, although now I know what it referred to.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: There’s a video of Hyde shooting a mask of Hillary. Seems like a real gem….
zhena gogolia
So nobody’s live-blogging Rachel Maddow?
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
I really don’t want to see that!
TS (the original)
@Kent: We have the immigrants who make too many exactly like the MAGAS. We lock many of them up offshore – I think that’s where the US learned about “locking them up”
We did kill off most of the native population in our first hundred years – and until the 1970s had a “White Australia Policy” that limited immigration to people with caucasian backgrounds. Both of these actions limited the non-white population and like in the US, some folks want that to be forever.
Catherine D.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Um, is this also the MLK Jr holiday? I don’t know Lobby Day, but Unite the Right comparisons have ominous overtones.
Brachiator
I was listening to local radio news for part of the day and never heard this mentioned. Impeachment, trade deal, etc., but not this.
Also no mention of the layoffs at most of the iheart radio stations throughout the country. Even online sites did not mention total numbers. Could be as many as 1,000 people.
Also, management doesn’t call it layoffs, but “employee dislocation.”
I guess they intend to use technology and AI, so management says, to somehow mimic or get around the elimination of a lot of the local talent.
Does anyone listen to commercial radio anymore?
Jay
And across the Pond, not Meghan and Harry,
https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/were-beginning-to-see-what-taking-back.html?m=1
Snip,…..
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/puerto-rico-finally-getting-its-damn-disaster-aid
Jay
Mnemosyne
@Jim Parish:
Billy Wilder saw a darkness in Fred MacMurray that few other directors did. Wilder also cast him as the heartless villain in “The Apartment.”
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Why would we?
Kent
@TS (the original): Correct me if I’m wrong. But I think Australia is still more than 90% white. Compared to the US which is about 60% non-Hispanic white.
Just imagine the horror show that would be US politics if this place was over 90% white.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
She has Parnas on tonight. He implicates DJT, Barr, and I think Pence too. ETA: I can’t watch, it would make me too nervous. I’m doing Brideshead Revisited on Britbox. But I’d love to get the BJ perspective.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Cool. I’m going try to watch.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Why would Parnas make you nervous?
mad citizen
@Jay: If Puerto Rico was smart it would announce a substantial investigation into “The Bidens”. Money would flow to them for sure.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
All television news programs make me nervous.
Jay
@Kent:
16.2% of Australians are either foreign born visible POC or Indigenous. Complicating the demographics is that Australia divides between the foreign born, and Australian born, not ethnicity. Some of the Italian, English, Scottish, German, Greek and South African immigrants could also be visible POC.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m certainly happy to make exceptions for CA boomers, starting with Jerry Brown.
But no other state has come remotely close to what CA has done over the last 40 years. We are unique, unfortunately.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mad citizen: Ha! The Mouse That Roared for the era of trump corruption
Spanky
You want killer smog, come to Western Pennsylvania! Specifically, Donora circa 1948:
Kent
@Jay: I don’t want to nit-pick the statistics. I was just pointing out that Trump would be at 60% approval today if the US was as white as Australia and all other things were equal.
WaterGirl
@Spanky: More than 7 links in a comment sends you straight to moderation.
Spanky
@WaterGirl: Yeah, I saw that after I’d submitted. Thanks for fishing it out.
It’s all OBE’ed by Parnas with Rachel now, anyway.
WaterGirl
@Spanky: OBE?
Kent
@WaterGirl: Overcome By Events?
Jay
@Kent:
the Liberals, ( Australia’s Conservative Party, probably due to the Coriolis Effect) managed to get 41% of the vote, which resulted in 52% of the seats in the House.
Australia has a Parliamentary System, where one does not “get” to vote for the Prime Minister, you “get” to vote for your local MP only. The Party that elects the most MP’s in their Ridings, has their Party Leader become Prime Minister, if they also won the election in their Riding.
Saying that Dump would win in a landslide, is an insult to all Australians. Dump is a uniquely American phenom.
sdhays
England is hell-bent on proving you wrong.
randy khan
@TomatoQueen:
I don’t have a lot of names to drop, so I’ve got to take the opportunity when I have it.
Jay
@sdhays:
Prime Ministers have only a fraction of the power of a US President.
Parliamentary systems have no such things as Executive Orders, War Powers Resolutions, Supreme Court appointments, blanket Infinity War AUMF’s,etc. Appointee’s are laid on the Civil Service “butter thin” not ankle deep.
Boris de Piffle Johnson and the Tories, and their electors, might be as ignorant, bigotted and in the bag for the Dirty Money Boys, but their powers are limited.
In addition, in Parliamentary systems, the Parties “wear” their leaders. An MP can say, well, I am a Tory, but not like those Tories, or that Leader, but it doesn’t garner them any mercy, all it allows is for intraparty maneuvers when the Leader falls.
Comparing Parliamentary systems to Dump’s election, despite the idiocy of voters, is akin to comparing Dump’s Election to Putin’s.
It’s a shallow “hot take” akin to Brooks or Sullivan, steeped in prejudice and faux intellectualism.
Kent
@Jay: I’m not saying Trump would win in a landslide in Australia. I’m saying he would win HERE in a landslide if the US was as white as Australia. The only reason he is below water in the US is because of the 40% non-white population.
Jay
@Kent:
Dolt 45 got the same overall percentage of votes from white voters as Romney. 58%.
Where those votes were, and where disenfranchisement and voter supression occured, is as if not more, a greater factor.
49% of white people, did not vote.
So were America as “white” as Australia, it would matter more for the electoral results, the effect of that on history, peoples life experience, education and where they lived, than there simply being a larger “base” of white people.