I’m too busy to post today, but the morning thread is in danger of tipping over into a Tbogg unit, and we can’t have that! So here’s a picture of a Green Heron who is heroning very hard, though not very greenly.
Have at it!
Florida woman, still rocking a punk rock ethos in the 2020s, which is kind of sad. Betty Cracker has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2012.
by Betty Cracker| 304 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I’m too busy to post today, but the morning thread is in danger of tipping over into a Tbogg unit, and we can’t have that! So here’s a picture of a Green Heron who is heroning very hard, though not very greenly.
Have at it!
by Betty Cracker| 192 Comments
This post is in: 2024 Primaries, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity
I wasn’t watching because fuck that loser, but according to CNN, Ron DeSantis came out swinging during an Iowa townhall last night. (Alternate theory: the windmilling fists were an attempt to regain his balance and avoid pitching forward off his wedge heels concealed in cowboy boot wrappers.)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday showed new urgency in taking on Donald Trump, attacking the former president at every turn at a CNN town hall in Iowa with the state’s caucuses less than five weeks away…
The economy? Trump “set the stage” for rising inflation, DeSantis said. The border crisis? Trump didn’t complete the wall, and Mexico didn’t pay for it, he said. Abortion? Trump is “flip-flopping on the right to life,” the Florida governor claimed.
He even blamed Trump for the Satanic Temple of Iowa’s display at the state Capitol, a development that has roiled Iowa and triggered a free speech debate. “Lo and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion,” DeSantis said, referring to the Internal Revenue Service granting the group tax-exempt status in 2019.
I’m skeptical of the theory that DeSantis could have buried Trump by attacking him right out of the gate. It’s a cult of personality, not a political party. Republicans want their Trumpy Bear, and therefore they failed to clutch the lumpy, sweaty, rotten pecan-stuffed sock that is Ron DeSantis to their bosom.
What we’re seeing here is desperation and shamelessness, which is also what Casey DeSantis displayed over the weekend by ordering out-of-state “mamas and grandmamas” to “descend on Iowa” and (illegally!) “participate” in the caucuses. The Trump people had some fun with that: (Politico)
Former president Donald Trump seized on an apparent blunder by Casey DeSantis, accusing Florida’s first lady of attempting to “commit organized voter fraud” with her invitation to out-of-state voters to participate in next month’s Iowa caucuses…
“The Trump campaign strongly condemns their dirty and illegal tactics and implores all Trump supporters to be aware of the DeSantises’ openly stated plot to rig the Caucus through fraud,” read the statement, which also called on Iowa governor Kim Reynolds to reaffirm that DeSantis had been mistaken and to clarify the caucus rules.
Trump-aligned Make America Great Again PAC weighed in as well, issuing a statement on “Casey DeSantis’ Embrace of Voter Fraud.”
“Casey DeSantis’ embrace of voter fraud to salvage her husband’s failing campaign is not just wrong, it risks compromising the integrity of the Iowa Caucus,” said spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in the statement.
With any luck, Trump will squash the DeSantii like delicate not-Florida cockroaches, grinding them under the heel of his tiny wingtip so thoroughly that they never dare seek political office again.
Speaking of people who should crawl under the nearest rock, disgraced FL GOP power throuple Christian and Bridget Ziegler are still attempting to ride out their scandal. Bridget sat stone-faced through a Sarasota County School Board meeting last night while every member besides herself voted on a resolution urging her to resign, including her fellow DeSantis-backed culture warriors.
The public also had its say! (Tampa Bay Times)
Speakers from more than a dozen community groups supported the calls for Ziegler’s resignation, saying she had helped create the culture wars nationally and placed Sarasota County at the epicenter.
“Our community is tired of the culture wars and we want it to go away,” said Carol Lerner, a director of the Support Our Schools movement.
The protesters carried signs reading “Bridget Must Go” and “Don’t Say 3-Way.” They handed out T-shirts with the words “Real Women Aren’t Transphobic Bigots,” an apparent reference to a Ziegler social media post that shows her wearing a T-shirt with the words “Real women — aren’t men.”
Bridget the Brazen said the resolution wasn’t binding and noted that members of the other board she sits on, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, didn’t bid her begone. That’s true, but that board isn’t an elected body — DeSantis personally stocked it with egregiously corrupt kooks and sycophants.
Meanwhile, Bridget’s husband, Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, is expected to get the heave-ho when the party’s executive board meets this weekend. (Orlando Sentinel)
Embattled Florida Republican Party chair Christian Ziegler faces a vote on Sunday to remove him from his $120,000 a year job following rape allegations lodged against him and the admission that he and his wife had a three-way affair.
So far he has steadfastly refused to resign even as Gov. Ron DeSantis and most state Republican leaders want him out…
Ziegler could be taking a cue from former President Donald Trump, [University of Miami political science professor Gregory] Koger said, who famously has refused to admit mistakes or wrongdoing. According to NBC News, Ziegler told Moms for Liberty at their convention in July, “Never apologize. Ever. … Apologizing makes you weak.”
But, Koger said, “He’s not Donald Trump.”
Indeed he is not. And unlike the school board, the FL GOP executive board has the power to kick Christian out on his ass.
The weather was weird in Florida over the summer and fall. The east side was deluged with rain, which caused massive floods. Here on the western side of the peninsula, we’re still in a drought, and our river is so low it’s hard to get the boat out sometimes. Maybe all of these creeps could deposit their buckets of flop sweat in the Green Swamp to even things out.
Open thread.
by Betty Cracker| 171 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics
Remember all the ooga-booga scaremongering about organized retail crime (ORC) this summer and fall? Con-media outlets ran breathless reports on an alarming rise in organized retail theft, usually accompanied by video of group smash-and-grab attacks on stores.
These reports were and probably still are a staple on Fox News and its con-media imitators. The implication being that rampant crime is part of everyday life in Joe Biden’s America, where liberal governments and prosecutors coddle criminals, unleashing chaos.
It wasn’t just liars and propagandists on right-leaning media. More respectable outlets like AP, CNN, the WaPo editorial page, Fortune, etc., also ran with the story. Well, it turns out it was all bullshit.
Smash-and-grab incidents do happen and have always happened, but the ballyhooed retail crime wave this year didn’t. This Popular Information report traces the crime panic back to a single source who was irresponsibly cited by multiple outlets.
The source was an executive who led an outfit called National Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR), which sounds suspiciously like an organization that would have a vested interest in perceptions about retail crime. He offered a wildly inaccurate interpretation of outdated statistics in a hearing. An excerpt from PI’s report:
The citation for the “research” by the National Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR) was actually a 2021 Congressional testimony by Brendan Dugan, then-President of CLEAR. Dugan testified that “CLEAR estimates that organized retail crime accounts for $45 billion in annual losses for retailers.” But in a recent interview with RetailDive, Dugan admitted that CLEAR did not conduct any research on ORC. Instead, Dugan was referring to the NRF’s estimate for total shrink from 2016.
The panic didn’t just play out in the media. As PI reports, lawmakers from both parties ran with that bullshit stat and crafted policy to combat the nonexistent ORC hordes. Naturally Republicans, including Trump, took it several steps further, using the phony stat to threaten violence.
Of course, none of this is shocking from con-media outlets. The Murdoch Cinematic Universe takes every opportunity to scare the shit out of its recliner-bound shut-ins because the more angry and afraid people are, the more willing they become to empower fascist blowhard Republicans.
But it’s alarming that mainstream outlets fell for this horseshit from one person from that particular organization. Would reporters swallow claims about the negative health effects of consuming butter at face value if they came from the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” people? Maybe!
It’s a shame because there were lots of important issues to cover this summer and fall instead of this ORC hooey. Like Orange Sauron’s increasingly unhinged fascist rhetoric. Or maybe women losing access to 21st century healthcare in the wake of the Dobbs decision. That they ran with the fake crime panic instead is a tell about priorities, and it’s rarely democracy and almost never women.
Open thread.
by Betty Cracker| 276 Comments
This post is in: Movies, Open Threads
I’ve had a hard time getting into the holiday spirit this year for several reasons too boring/stupid to recount. It wouldn’t matter except that I am the official Keeper of the Christmas Spirit™️ in my family. This has always been the case in my immediate family since my husband and kid are bah-humbug types.
Over the past almost-10 years, with the loss of my mom followed by the deaths of my grandmothers, it applies for my extended family too. Dog help us, I am now the family matriarch. Someone has to put up the fucking tree and decorations, plan the gatherings, etc., and that person is now me.
That’s okay because I genuinely love Christmas, but when I do feel grinchy come December, it’s problematic for the aforementioned reasons. So, to address the cheer deficit this year, I’ve been watching my favorite Christmas movies. The movies are also problematic.
One of the problematic movies is “Love Actually,” which I’ve watched every December for about two decades now. It’s an objectively terrible movie. If you don’t believe me, please proceed to this immortal 2013 takedown by Lindy West at Jezebel. Love it, hate it, never seen the movie — go read it. It’s hilarious.
Still, I love that dumb movie regardless of its many, many, many unforgiveable flaws. For one thing, it has an incredible cast, including Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney and many other notables.
Also, there’s a reason West’s exhaustive and mostly accurate critique of every problematic “love” scenario in that movie does not include the epiphany experienced by Bill Nighy’s has-been rockstar character, Billy. This occurs when Billy realizes his long-suffering Scottish manager (Joe, played by Gregor Fisher) is actually the love of his life and that their decades-long platonic debauchery has been a lot of fun despite Billy’s constant complaints. So yeah: love, actually. For Billy and Joe, anyway.
My other Christmas movies are the Harry Potter films, which I watch in order. I realize they aren’t strictly holiday-themed, but Christmas figures in several of them, and we generally watch them during the holiday season for whatever reason; it’s a tradition.
The series (books and movies) is problematic mainly due to JK Rowling’s heel turn on trans rights, some legit (IMO) criticism of the use of stereotypes, etc. That said, I’ve personally seen kids who felt like misfits find a tribe — and develop a love of reading — with fellow HP fans.
Also, watching the actors grow up across the eight films is really cool. Especially the transformation of Neville Longbottom! Jesus Christ, who saw that coming? If you’d told me after my first viewing of “Sorcerer’s Stone” that I’d have problematic Mrs. Robinson-type feelings for Neville after “Deathly Hallows 2,” I’d assume someone spiked your butterbeer with Everclear.
Anyhoo, these are my problematic Christmas movies. And since I started watching them earlier this week, I got my tree and decorations done, Drunken Aunties Christmas Cookie night scheduled and family feasts planned. So that’s good.
Open thread.
This post is in: LGBTQ Rights Are Human Rights, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality
Moms for Liberty cofounder Bridget Ziegler used to seek the spotlight. She was behind Ron DeSantis when he signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill she loudly championed (second adult blonde from the right). The bill’s statehouse sponsor, former Rep. Joe Harding, was also looking on (directly behind the governor).
Harding, a squinty fascist who spent his short political career yapping about his Christian values, has since resigned and been sentenced to prison after the DOJ busted him for small business loan scams. And as everyone now knows, Ziegler’s husband, FL GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, is being investigated for rape, and both bible-thumping Zieglers told investigators they’d had three-way sex with the accuser in the past.
The Moms for Liberty extremist organization is trying to distance itself from Bridget Ziegler, but at least one out of state chapter has adopted a less embarrassing brand name due to the Ziegler scandal fallout. This week, Bridget Ziegler resigned her gig at the conservative Leadership Institute think-tank, where she was in charge of training other religious kooks to take over school boards.
But so far, she’s hanging onto her Sarasota County School Board seat. She’s also still a DeSantis-appointed member of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board, which the governor created to punish Disney for criticizing the Don’t Say Gay law.
The school board meets next week. The tourism board met yesterday. Since this scandal is getting wall-to-wall coverage in Florida, lots of people wondered if Bridget Ziegler would show up in person to the board meeting as usual. Nope — she chickened out.
Ziegler phoned in on Zoom, appearing as a disembodied “BZ” on a screen. The other DeSantis-aligned religious fanatics and grifters on the board were present and ignored the BZ elephant in the room.
Instead, they stuck to their talking points, yammering about Disney’s operational fuckups to provide cover for the governor’s blatant attacks on free speech. But in the public comments portion of the meeting, a hero emerged in the person of Celebration, Florida resident Debra McDonald.
After noting that the governor has called on accused rapist Christian Ziegler to resign as FL GOP chair, McDonald took up the issue the board ignored: (Daily Beast)
“Bridget should follow,” McDonald continued. “Mrs. Ziegler has not made Florida a better place. She is the face of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ revolution, which brought this board to where it is, to this place today, and has caused untold harm in our classrooms and in our communities…”
“(Bridget Ziegler’s) role in demonizing members of the LGBTQ community is hurting the state, while she has apparently been a part of the letter B in that group,” McDonald wryly observed.
Then she addressed BZ directly.
“Bridget, you need to do what is best for the greater good,” McDonald said. “We live in a free Florida, not an autocratic pseudo-Christian dictatorship.”
McDonald again spoke to the board as a whole.
“What Mrs. Ziegler does privately with other consenting adults is no more our business than it is the behavior of the other consenting adults,” McDonald said. “It is the rank hypocrisy of attacking others for what she personally practices that should disqualify her for a position of public trust.”
With that, McDonald returned to her seat in the audience.
Well done, Ms. McDonald!
I hope Sarasota residents will show up at next week’s school board meeting and follow McDonald’s example. Both Zieglers need to be hounded out of public life, and if the husband is found guilty of the crimes he’s accused of, he should go to jail for a long time. Enough with these spiteful fucking hypocrites.
Is it possible that this massive scandal implicating the state’s GOP establishment and its AstroTurf activists, combined with DeSantis’s humiliating flop on the national stage, will inspire Florida Republicans to rethink their approach? Not until they start losing elections, and they’ve been winning since the turn of the century.
That said, normies are getting an extremely unflattering close-up of the state’s culture warriors. And the hard-right state supreme court is expected to clear the way for the governor’s six-week abortion ban to take effect any day now.
It’s hard for a Democrat to be optimistic about Florida politics, so I’m a pessimist as a defense mechanism. But I will say it’s rare to see the stage set so completely for voter backlash to party overreach. We shall see.
Open thread.
by Betty Cracker| 218 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I read a depressing sentence somewhere earlier to the effect that the war for Ukraine is being lost in the U.S. Congress. Democrats are saying as much during the ongoing negotiations for aid for Ukraine that are currently linked with border security funding: (WaPo)
“I just don’t think there’s any question that we are about to abandon Ukraine,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the key negotiators on the border package. “When Vladimir Putin marches into Kyiv and into Europe, Republicans will have to live with the fact that our sons and daughters will be over fighting when Vladimir Putin marches into a NATO country. They will rue the day that they decided to play politics.”
Maybe the dwindling handful of GOP Russia hawks would rue that day, but the ascendent Trumpists in the House (and some in the Senate) would welcome a right-wing, ethno-Christianist conquest of Europe. They want that for this continent too and would merrily leave NATO allies to their fate, never mind that it would destroy American credibility in international affairs until the heat death of the sun.
Still, as bad as the situation is, I wonder if Republicans are handing Democrats a political opportunity here by insisting on hardline immigration reform. In purely political terms, if Democrats accept some version of a border crackdown in exchange for foreign aid, they could continue support for Ukraine and defang one of the Republicans’ most potent issues against the president at the same time.
I’m not advocating that path, just noting the possibility. Whether it would even be possible depends on what terms the GOP is offering, and I see maddeningly few specifics in the reporting but assume Republican proposals are horrible. I also assume there will be no good options on the table since we’re negotiating with nihilists. But if anyone can get a least-terrible deal in this situation, maybe it’s Biden.
Open thread.
by Betty Cracker| 162 Comments
This post is in: Birdwatching, Open Threads
This isn’t a respite thread, but here’s some soothing content anyway: a Roseate Spoonbill and pair of Sandhill Cranes who recently visited our lagoon. I see spoonbills in that spot quite frequently (it’s a crawdad buffet), and I see cranes flying overhead or in fields a lot. But I’ve only seen cranes in river vegetation a couple of times and had never seen them hanging around with a pinko before!
I shared a still photo of the trio in comments the other day. In the video, you can hear one of the Sandhills trumpeting as it briefly flies. The metallic scraping sound that prompts the cranes’ short relocation flight is Bill launching a canoe. He went fishing and caught a couple of big bass!
Open thread.
Squishable Wednesday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (162)