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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

In my day, never was longer.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

You cannot shame the shameless.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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You are here: Home / Archives for Organizing & Resistance / Your Place Is In The Resistance

Your Place Is In The Resistance

Late Night Open Thread: Whack *All* the Moles, Many Times!

by Anne Laurie|  February 18, 20253:04 am| 85 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Trump Crime Cartel, Your Place Is In The Resistance

I come from a culture that cherishes its grudges, so of course I like this framing:

COMPLAINT: trying to counter these guys is like playing whac-a-mole!
REALITY: Whac-a-mole is:
–fun for the folks holding the mallets
–rough going for the moles
–dumbass moles just keep on exposing themselves
–it's something a whole group can enjoy
–feels good inside to thwack an asshole

[image or embed]

— Jason Linkins (@dceiver.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 6:10 PM

so much of media seems to think its primary job is to turn a spotlight on the hypocrisy of the audience's own pieties when its actual job is to hit a guy who made one million dollars turning puppies into mulch with a hammer five hundred times

— rev. howard arson (@theophite.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 2:12 AM

The voters asked for cheap eggs. Trump & Musk are the villains here

[image or embed]

— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 3:27 PM

Every time you run the blade across you cut the groove deeper

[image or embed]

— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 2:25 PM

With at least one target, it seems to be working…

im not mad, im laughing, actualy

[image or embed]

— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 12:19 PM

please dont put in the very platform that i own that i got mad.

— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 12:20 PM

Late Night Open Thread: Whack *All* the Moles, Many Times!Post + Comments (85)

Notes on needing/supporting Abortions in the US, now and Post-Roe (Open Thread)

by MisterDancer|  May 3, 20227:11 pm| 78 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Civil Rights, Contraception Clusterfuck, Fuck The Poor, GOP Death Cult, Healthcare, Open Threads, Organizing & Resistance, Politics, Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Women's Rights, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It), Your Place Is In The Resistance

Everything below is from my prior awareness and information collected recently. Corrections welcome:

If you need assistance, or want to help the fight via donations and/or volunteering? This document focuses on local/state level support groups.
(Thanks to UncleEbeneezer for the hookup on this!)

A broader, if slightly older (just a couple years), set of guidance is the Handbook for a Post-Roe America by Robin Marty. I can recommend the author as someone I paid into the Patreon of, before she closed it. And that was due to the quality, and importance, of her work in this area.

I hear from some sources, including a Doula I know, that acquiring Plan B now is wise — if you can w/o impacting overall supply. For those unaware, Plan B is a “morning after” drug. However, you should be clear on it’s usage and esp. it’s weight restrictions. It’s not dangerous, just has key limitations.

In addition to http://reprocare.com, mentioned in 1st link above, someone here noted https://aidaccess.org/ as another site for Abortion via mail.

I’m providing a variety of approaches — different people will have different needs. Even today, Roe is a dead letter for poorer people, especially of Color, due to lack of Internet access and ability to take time off for the procedure, if needed — including for bullshit “waiting periods”.

Many of the agencies and advocates mentioned above have experience, and guidance, in these areas. It’s worth at least getting familiar with modern options now, even if you’re in a “safe” State.

We have a lot of threads on the Roe leak. This one’s Open.

Notes on needing/supporting Abortions in the US, now and Post-Roe (Open Thread)Post + Comments (78)

Joss Whedon Isn’t An Aberration, He’s The Same Old Same Old

by The Thin Black Duke|  January 25, 202210:21 am| 134 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Popular Culture, The War On Women, TV & Movies, Your Place Is In The Resistance

Joss Whedon Isn't An Aberration, He's The Same Old Same Old

Huh. I guess the Joss Whedon Rehabilitation Tour isn’t going well:

Joss Whedon’s interview with New York magazine was many things: a complete denial of responsibility for the pain he caused, a self-mythologizing “woe is me” pity party, and a not-so-subtle dig at the people he victimized. Journalist Lila Shapiro gave Whedon enough room to paint a terrible picture of himself, with plenty of paint left over for his fellow pseudo-feminist power-tripping ilk.

Bottom line, Whedon is the personification of the hateful asshole manager at McDonalds who is completely invested into making their overworked and underpaid employees miserable every goddamned day. Cruelty is always the default.

And I don’t care that Whedon is a gifted, award-winning writer and director. Too many idiots buy into the sick delusion that anything goes when you’re creating Art, even when it hurts other people. Yeah, I was an asshole. But I’m rich, and I won an Emmy, so it was worth it.

Omelet. Eggs. It’s still a lame-ass alibi. Narcissistic shitbags sure love using it, though.

But Whedon did apologize, however. Sorta kinda maybe.

“This was a very young cast, and it was easy for everything to turn into a cocktail party,” Whedon told New York. “Sometimes you have to yell”, he added.

Supposedly, the “yelling” got pretty bad. Michelle Trachtenberg (who played Dawn Summers, Buffy’s sister) said there was a rule on set that Whedon was not allowed to be in a room alone with her. Trachtenberg was fifteen years old. Hey, spare the rod, spoil the child, right?

Thankfully, Charisma Carpenter (who played professional mean girl Cordelia Chase at Sunnydale High School) isn’t having any of Joss Whedon’s bullshit:

“For nearly two decades, I have held my tongue and even made excuses for certain events that traumatize me to this day,” she began.

“Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working together on the sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel,” she wrote of the show creator. “The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer. It is with a beating, heavy heart that I say I coped in isolation and, at times, destructively.”

Carpenter claimed Whedon found his alleged misconduct “amusing,” claiming he was particularly cruel to her while she was pregnant, even calling her “fat” in front of cast and crew.

“He was mean and biting, disparaging about others openly, and often played favorites,” she wrote. When Whedon found out she was pregnant, she says, he asked the actress if she was “going to keep it” and “manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me,” Carpenter alleged.

Speaking about her pregnancy and stress, Carpenter wrote that all her joy was “sucked right out,” adding, “I made excuses for his behavior and repressed my own pain.”

Thing is, although Whedon is getting his ass handed to him right now, some people are missing the forest fire for the trees. The most disturbing aspect of Whedon’s predatory behavior is how damned long he kept getting away with it. Carpenter was silent for over twenty years because she felt it wasn’t safe to speak up. Truth be told, Whedon isn’t an abberation. Not at all. In this ugly, misogynistic culture, Whedon is just the same old same old.

And when brutalization of women is normalized, bad men do bad things because they feel comfortable doing so, especially when they’re in a position of power. It doesn’t matter whether it’s at your neighborhood Mickey D’s or a soundstage in Hollywood, some men are gonna be the thugs who think rape is “sexyfuntime”.

Chris Noth of Sex and the City and The Equalizer was busted for being a creep who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Behind the scenes on Doctor Who, John Barrowman got off on showing his junk to actresses on set. So did Louis CK on Louie. Bill Cosby acted like sexual assault was an Olympic sport and he really wanted to win that gold medal. After multiple complaints of misconduct, Jeff Garlin was finally kicked off The Goldbergs. The monstrous Harvey Weinstein went to jail.

But don’t forget that the men who committed these crimes got away with it for years because even though everybody knew what was going on, these men kept on doing it because other men did nothing about it. For years women were assaulted, harassed or lost their jobs because of these men and other men did nothing about it. It was only when other women stopped being silent and started raising hell that these men faced consequences for their awful behavior and women shouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting most of the time because otherwise things won’t change.

If something ugly is going down on a movie set, the male actors can stop it. For example, Winona Ryder remembers what happened when director Francis Ford Coppolla was bullying her during the filming of Bram Stoker’s Dracula:

During a recent interview with the Sunday Times, Ryder recounted an incident on the set of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in which director Francis Ford Coppola urged the other actors on set to join him in heaping verbal abuse upon her to elicit an emotional response. Ryder said costars Reeves and Anthony Hopkins, however, refused to join in.

The scene in question finds Ryder’s character lying on a bed with Dracula (Gary Oldman), and he turns into a bunch of rats. Off camera, Ryder said, Coppola was shouting, “You whore! You whore!” in an attempt to get her to cry. “To put it in context I’m supposed to be crying,” she told the Times. “Literally, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu… Francis was trying to get all of them to yell things that would make me cry. But Keanu wouldn’t, Anthony wouldn’t… the more it happened, I was like… It just didn’t work. I was, like, really? It kind of did the opposite.”

Reeves and Hopkins knew that what Coppola was doing to Ryder was bullshit, so they stopped it. Now, as a counter-example, I bet Shelly Duvall wished Jack Nicholson said something to Stanley Kubrick when the director played sick mind games and verbally abused the terrified actress for a goddamned year while shooting The Shining. But Nicholson said and did nothing. It was no big deal. Same old same old.

The only language that misogynist jerks understand is “male”; they’re incapable of hearing the word “no” unless another man says it. Therefore, any man who claims to be a feminist ally is obligated to use this leverage when it’s necessary. If they don’t use it, they’re part of the problem.

Men can’t get away with pretending that nothing is happening and telling themselves that women aren’t being victimized and doing nothing and acting like Sgt. Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes anymore. If a dude’s commitment to feminism begins and ends with him putting a #Me Too bumper sticker on his Prius, he’s a fraud.

It’s just the same old same old.

Joss Whedon Isn’t An Aberration, He’s The Same Old Same OldPost + Comments (134)

MLK: from Dreaming to Reality

by MisterDancer|  January 17, 20222:00 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Black Votes Matter, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Recommended Reading, Taking Action to Defend Democracy, This Week In Blackness, Your Place Is In The Resistance, Cosplay Socialists, Don't Know Much About History, It's Not Too Late, Our Failed Media Experiment, Our Failed Political Establishment, Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person, There can be no unity without accountability.

Among the most painful bits of Dr. King’s legacy is how so much of it’s reduced to “I Have a Dream.” It’s true that it’s a landmark speech, powerful and moving…

…and always heard out of context of the other, more direct speeches that graced the March on Washington (a March organized by an openly Gay Man, no less – go look up the badass Bayard Rustin, please and thank you!). As if  the marchers just wanted to spend all day on their feet, listening to platitudes and winsome ideas!

I’m not going to dive into that context, I assume your Google button ain’t broke. :) What I will do, is talk about a couple of other works by Dr. King, works that ground him in the realities he fought to overcome, and that echo into these times.

The text for the afternoon will be taken from two works from near Dr. King’s passing:

  • “The Drum Major Instinct,” (hereafter DRUM), which you can listen to here, and read here, and
  • “A New Sense of Direction,” (hereafter SENSE), which you can read here.

I post all this to encourage you to read/listen to the above in full. To underline that Dr. King was far richer a thinker and even rabble-rouser than gets noticed — that the Hoover FBI feared him for damned good reasons. If you chose to read the above docs, and skip the rest of this? HELL YA!

But for those who want more? Follow…

See, Dr. King did not buy into a color-blind society. That wasn’t the context he gave his “Dream” speech under. The context, the fuller context of his work and life’s mission, is made plain by this remarkable passage in DRUM:

 

[…]when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You’re just as poor as Negroes.”

And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white.

And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”

Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out.

And there’s so much more.

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One of the positive parts of Dr. King’s approach was in seeing a bigger picture, was in tying together all manner of injustice into a massive framework, what we today would call an attempt at intersectionality. It’s far from perfect; we know he was far too casual about martial relations to see the fullness of sexism. And although he was surprisingly cool with Rustin, he also failed to be vocal at all about what we’d today call LBGTQIA+ issues.

Yet there was a seed of power in his approach to directing white people to look inside themselves, in his challenge to their (and society’s) assumption of inherent goodness. And as critical as he was towards poor whites, that sympathy evaporates completely when you consider his words towards what we, today, might see as Privileged White people. From SENSE:

[…]policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

King is far more aggressive – even angry — about calling out white society than he’s usually portrayed as. Reading his dissections of that systemic failure, and ideas on overcoming it, are bracing to this day…sadly.

See, King’s quick to lay the political blame on what I contend are still surpassing the Black and Brown voice in politics:

Negroes became outraged by blatant inequality. Their ultimate goal was total, unqualified freedom. The majority of the white progressives were outraged by the brutality displayed. Their goal was improvement or limited progression.

Obtaining the right to use public facilities, register and vote, token educational advancement, brought to the Negro a sense of achievement; he felt the momentum. But it brought to the whites a sense of completion. When Negroes assertively moved on to ascend the second rung of the ladder, a firm resistance from the white community became manifest.[….] Everyone underestimated the amount of rage Negroes were suppressing and the amount of bigotry the white majority was disguising.

(Not everyone. Ask Malcolm X, or Rev. Shuttlesworth, and you’d get a different answer on this, to name two people right off.)

But Dr. King is hella on the right track. And he knows it. And we’re still talking about the impact white progressives have on the Black and Brown vote, to this very day.

And because he’s on the right track, I can say this: Dr. King is clear that some changes can’t be made by speaking too kindly. That some painful truths have to come to the fore.

That’s what Black Lives Matter did. That’s what the 1619 Project did. That’s (part of) why Critical Race Theory – an academic theory mostly for lawyers – had to be scapegoated.

Dr. King saw that the closer we get to reality, the harsher the blow back. The more we talk about the systemic issues in this country, the more the arc of justice pushes the many folx who’ve suffered under those issues into the light and air we all deserve…and the more the old guard will press and preen and pervert and backstab to maintain power.

And SENSE touches on what kind of people have, and can, overcome those barriers:

[…]there are millions who have risen morally above prevailing prejudices. They are willing to share power and to accept structural alterations of society, even at the cost of traditional privilege.[…]Their support serves not only to enhance our power, but their break from the attitudes of the larger society splits and weakens our opposition.

It’s…not an easy calling, that Higher Calling, y’all. If you say it is, if you think I overstate things, then I ask you to show your work.

To conclude: I submit there are some things we can all learn from studying even a bit of Dr. King. And I hope the above serves as a starter, to that on your part, today.

MLK: from Dreaming to RealityPost + Comments (45)

Gravely Disappointed

by MisterDancer|  January 14, 20224:33 pm| 170 Comments

This post is in: Civil Rights, Domestic Politics, domestic terrorists, Don't Agonize - Organize, Don't Mourn, Organize, Economics, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Your Place Is In The Resistance

Regarding Senator Sinema’s words, yesterday: I would muse on the…universality, if you will, of the toxic approach people like Senator Sinema take in all this. For it reminds me, again, of Dr. King’s words on this kind of person:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is:

  • more devoted to “order” than to justice,
  • who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice,
  • who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”,
  • who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom,
  • who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

—-King, Martin Luther. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.].” Upenn.edu, 16 Apr. 1963, www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.

[Edits mine – MisterDancer]

Why does the above matter? Because: There’s a saying in some social justice circles, that what’s needed aren’t Allies. They need Accomplices.

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What does that mean? It means people who are willing to not just let go of prejudice, not just willing to address other’s prejudices when it’s convenient for them, but actively engaged in using their privilege to raise people up, and in – at the end of the day – engaged in the life—long work to dismantling their privilege.

They require people who will avoid taking up all the space so that all voices can be heard far more equally, than happens today. They underline that you cannot support a movement, while sucking at the teat of the forces that seek to break that movement.

And so, yesterday, Senator Sinema chose to take up all the space, to take up all the air. She chose to offer a negative peace, over justice.

She, and the other Senators, outspoken and silent, she stands with will say to their last breath, they are Allies. They will insist their stance is about doing the right thing, the right way. That they just can’t agree with the methods for direct action, to protect the stealing of votes. They insist there is time to find another convenient season, to address these issues.

In this, they are not far in words traded in our media from the deeper threat – the GOP who applaud these moves. The ones who see on the horizon a time when their cult of power cannot be broken, and their desire for power will go unchallenged. These are people who have not forgotten the truth of the Dixiecrats: for all their spoken hate of Black and Brown folx (among many others), they needed my ancestors. Jim Crow’s broken-assed economy meant they couldn’t just throw their bodies, or even minds, away. They couldn’t escape the reality, save by lying to everyone about it by claiming Jim Crow as the “moderate” stance, the stance of “good” people.

Indeed, “scientific racism” was invented so that Victorian-era people could feel good about treating groups of people like machines. And to do so while claiming they were Allies to the people they abused, just as slave owners came to say that Black folx were children who required a firm hand…indefinitely.

And that “good feelings first” mentality allowed 1700 of those slave owners to stand in Congress over the centuries. The very same American Congress, the seat of freedom, where Senator Sinema chose to defend their horrors in standing against voting rights.

After all, they were all good moderate people, to be certain. /s

People have always sought a way to be a moderate, a centrist, even in light of much of the worst humanity has done. To retain every bit of their privilege, a thing they “deserve” and have “worked hard for, unlike others”. To hold their space and never yield it, ensuring they and the people they “care” about are always seen as important, now and forever trapped in an amber poured of blood and pain.

There are trials and tribulations to come. And they come, in no small part, from what I’ve written above.

So, to you, the reader who made it through all this ramble: I’m going to try to use my energy here to be a better Accomplice. And I’m working through what that means, considering the current situation. What I can bring to light here to accomplish that mission, and to build connections and community — even if I have to be mean about it, sometimes. :)

Y’all hold me to task, on that, OK?

Gravely DisappointedPost + Comments (170)

Repubs in Disarray! Open Thread: Liz Cheney Has Calculated Her Options

by Anne Laurie|  May 5, 20219:14 pm| 92 Comments

This post is in: GOP Death Cult, NANCY SMASH!, Your Place Is In The Resistance, Schadenfreude

https://t.co/yLqbECSk6T pic.twitter.com/iA0cgeRUQ1

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) May 4, 2021

Donald Trump is an old man, not in the best of health, facing considerable legal jeopardy compounded by his failing business enterprises. Some (noisy) portion of the Republican party’s voters have pledged fealty to him, regardless of what Trump’s wavering attentions might mean for other, less prominent GOP members and their districts. Most of the national GOP leadership, elevated by the same Wingnut Wurlitzer tropes that crowned Trump, have publicly announced their loyalty to the Man over the Party (or our mutual commonwealth).

Liz Cheney is still young, by political standards — a full generation younger than TFG, or for that matter Mitch McConnell. She’s already volutarily unpersoned herself in the current Republican Party; the attention-seekers and sycophants who crowd Fox News’ greenrooms will never let her ‘disloyalty’ be forgotten, nor will the hardcore MAGAts forgive her for spotlighting their god-emperor’s nakedness. So she’s nothing to lose, and potentially much to gain, by assuming the mantle of Sensible Republican Anti-Trump Spokeswoman.

Worst that happens is she spends the next couple of decades giving I told you so statements from the security of conservative think tanks & corporate boards. But assuming that the current uneasy Republican balance collapses — that the contradictions between the permanent-party ‘conservatives’ and the manic Trumpistas fails — well, who better to lead the inevitable Not-Democrats party that survives, or arises, in a country where no less and no more than two national parties can thrive?

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The GOP is at a turning point. History is watching us, @RepLizCheney writes in an op-ed: https://t.co/f6XTfJnzm7 pic.twitter.com/XmpVz9NrKq

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) May 5, 2021

This is the most perverse take. Donald Trump, the man who, according to practically every elected Republican, still speaks for the party, continues to swear up and down that the 2020 election was stolen. But no, it's CHENEY who's causing problems and rocking the boat. https://t.co/UrXRPMGeFg

— Andrew Egger (@EggerDC) May 4, 2021

Captain Obvious Has Joined the Chat –

If the House GOP ultimately takes stronger action against Liz Cheney than it did against Marjorie Taylor Greene, then one has to wonder if it's time to make tough choices about the continued unity of the party. https://t.co/5g9rd6nMqw

— David French (@DavidAFrench) May 4, 2021

the election results, rather than go along with the rest of the cult-like 'up is actually down' litmus test, then they all turned on her, just like that. It has nothing to do with 'rejecting interventionism' or w/e & everything to do with the GOP becoming a personality cult.

— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) May 4, 2021

The irony of far right House Republicans losing their minds over Liz Cheney:

She stole their playbook.

The caucus can’t afford to lose even a small bloc of Representatives.

The terrorists are now the hostages to someone willing to go full reverse-Tea-Party.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) May 3, 2021

Jon Chait, at NYMag:

… The rationale for Cheney’s defenestration is that she has violated decorum. Her forceful denunciation of Trump’s lies “suggested that Cheney was not looking to persuade but to bludgeon. Rhetorical devices like putting THE BIG LIE in all caps gave the tweet a feeling of something one might hear on CNN or MSNBC,” explains Byron York. “The question is, how to address those Republicans and their beliefs.” National Review’s Dan McLaughlin adds, “If she can’t move off this topic as Mitch [McConnell] has, she needs to do that from the back benches.”

The catch, of course, is that Trump and his minions have neither modulated their tone nor moved off the topic. Nor, for that matter, has the rest of the party. The Republican establishment has made a display of affirming the defeated president’s status as its leader. Republicans leaders have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of their president-in-exile. Aspiring candidates — including not just Trump sycophants like Josh Hawley, but even candidates who have maintained some distance from him, like Nikki Haley — have announced that they will defer to Trump rather than run against him….

The demand that Cheney stop forcefully refuting Trump’s lies about the election is designed to force his enemies into unilateral disarmament. Republican leaders are free to flatter and placate him, but they are not free to call out his lies or return his attacks in kind. Trump’s critics can stay in the party, for now, but they must act like guests in somebody else’s home.

What’s astonishing about Cheney’s dissent is not only that she is such an unlikely figure to mount a doomed and lonely stand. She was born to the party and the conservative movement; she hasn’t got a moderate bone in her body. What’s more unusual still is that she has no obvious rationale other than sheer principle. Elected officials, faced with an unwinnable fight, nearly always yield to realism. Cheney apparently believes that respect for the rule of law is a nonnegotiable principle of conservatism…

Hard to find a lawmaker with a more conservative voting record than Cheney. The GOP is now living in Jonestown. https://t.co/QAprZj5ikm

— Edward Luce (@EdwardGLuce) May 5, 2021

Frankly he’s right. And it’s damning. The message is Trump and the Big Lie, and pretending the insurrection didn’t happen. There’s no other message to deliver. Any policy issues don’t hold a candle to that. https://t.co/0vC7lUy7gt

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 4, 2021

New via CNBC: House Republican Liz Cheney’s top donors are standing by her despite the effort to oust her from the GOP leadership — and some say they will withhold contributions to anyone who opposes Cheney.

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 5, 2021

REPORTER: Mr. President, do you have any comments on efforts to oust Liz Cheney from the House Reublican leadership post?

BIDEN: I don't understand the Republicans.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 5, 2021

<em>Repubs in Disarray!</em> Open Thread: Liz Cheney Has Calculated Her OptionsPost + Comments (92)

Cheap Snark Open Thread: Being Mean to MAGAt Morons

by Anne Laurie|  February 12, 20201:18 am| 46 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Immigration, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Right to Vote, Your Place Is In The Resistance

I actually love the idea of a mandatory citizenship test for everyone. Birth rights are dumb. It’s not an achievement to be born and nobody should be rewarded for it.
I also find it hilarious that Republicans think this will play to THEIR advantage. https://t.co/PDhvKKPzKj

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 4, 2020

Citizenship tests, @benshapiro? Citizenship tests for everyone? Bring them the fuck on, Benny boy! The GOP will have zero seats in the Senate. None! Fucking Montana will be stone cold blue as the only people with voting rights will be university students.
Bring. Them. On!

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 5, 2020

I try not to encourage being mean to people (yeah, you should read me when the filters are *off*), but when people waltz into someone else’s online conversation attempting to ‘slay’ them, well — don’t start none, won’t *be* none, fellas. Since Ben Shapiro is well-compensated for being a professional Guy Who Never Learns, only fitting he lead this clown parade…

It’s like they live in their own reality. The US Constitution is completely invalid there, save for the 2nd Amendment, and facts are literally anything they like them to be.
It’s not even a cult. It’s an asylum. https://t.co/295bS4rSm1

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 5, 2020

The bio says “American through and through.”
I mean, not enough to read the Constitution, but definitely enough to show immigrants what’s what.
Sad, sad dumbasses. https://t.co/3T7PfwTSB2

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 5, 2020

English is hard, too. https://t.co/2g8wDXjIug

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 5, 2020

And now I have to explain to them that Mitt won’t need to face the voters until 2024… It’s almost like being born here doesn’t ACTUALLY make you a real American or something. https://t.co/X76T5oX45j

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 5, 2020

A supporter of Trump is telling me that my party is perfectly illustrated by bashing people who disagree with me on the internet.
Someone, please, check 5th Avenue for a body of a shooting victim named “Irony.” https://t.co/fiIA8qE7lG

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 5, 2020

When you are a Trump cultist, reading the US Constitution is extremely hard. Reading newspaper articles is no easier. Hell, even reading the entire headline of the very article you try to shame me with is too damn exhausting. pic.twitter.com/Q57VUbtpSK

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 6, 2020

Cheap Snark Open Thread: Being Mean to MAGAt MoronsPost + Comments (46)

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