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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

No one could have predicted…

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

You are here: Home / Archives for I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Late Night Open Thread: But I *Meant* So Well!

by Anne Laurie|  March 12, 20223:22 am| 42 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology, War in Ukraine, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Professional political columnist/analyst:

Time to send large unmanned aircraft with humanitarian aid to Ukrainian cities under siege. Worst case scenario is some food and medicine falls into the wrong hands while many innocent lives are saved.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) March 11, 2022


Someone points out that, unfortunately, combatants in the middle of a shooting war are twitchy about any kind of flying vehicle crossing over disputed territory…

I’ve covered cargo drones in the last 9 years, so here’s a short answer: most drone delivery is small, parcel-sized payloads at short range. The big stuff involves full-sized helicopters like the K-MAX flying preset routes just without pilots, which just reads as military flights https://t.co/CZCxXI3ra1

— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) March 11, 2022

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Late Night Open Thread: <em>But I *Meant* So Well!</em>Post + Comments (42)

Friday Morning Open Thread: One More Week, Almost Over

by Anne Laurie|  April 24, 20206:44 am| 112 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Dog Blogging, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Trumpery, Assholes, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

We’ve officially lost it pic.twitter.com/Sm6dcDFE5G

— Lizzie O'Leary (@lizzieohreally) April 23, 2020

Muslims across the Middle East are preparing for the month of Ramadan amid #coronavirus lockdowns. pic.twitter.com/pl2Q62BtGB

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 23, 2020

Progress:

The U.S. House passed a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill to fund small businesses and hospitals, pushing the total spending to address the crisis to an unprecedented near $3 trillion https://t.co/V8mhvE0bug

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 24, 2020

I hate doing this to you guys, first thing in the morning, but it’s kinda an important (unavoidable) topic [Oval Office Occupant warning]…

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Friday Morning Open Thread: One More Week, Almost OverPost + Comments (112)

Just Chillin’

by ruemara|  November 15, 201912:49 am| 49 Comments

This post is in: Nature & Respite, Open Threads, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Green Balloons, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Take a break from fuckery all day, every day. It’ll still be there when you’re ready to deal with it.

Go breathe. Go create something.

The feeling I have is that the constant crap we have to deal with is to prevent us from saying, “hey, we can make the world a bit better”. When we have room to breathe, time to focus on breathing, we have ideas. We gain strength, release anger and tension. We think clearer and for those of us with souls, we feel human and humanity towards others. So stop for a while tonight. Enjoy something. Write a few lines. Laugh at something. Feel unabashedly in love with a person, a story, a piece of music. Forget the bullshit of adulthood and expectations. Be intensely you – and enjoy how great you are.

You earned it. Obligatory cat pic from my library of shots during my tenure in animal behaviour.

Adorable little kitten wrapped in a full burrito restraining wrap.
Be the purrito, live the purrito

Just Chillin’Post + Comments (49)

Repub Venality Open Thread: Trump Wants His WAAAAAHll & He Wants It NAOOOOW

by Anne Laurie|  August 28, 20198:46 pm| 50 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Grifters Gonna Grift, Immigration, Open Threads, Trumpery, All Too Normal, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own, We Are All Mayans Now

“When aides have suggested that some of his orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said.” https://t.co/eR13aozsqh

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) August 28, 2019

They’re a bunch of damaged middle school boys drawing up plans for their Fortress of Evil. Disgusting as this is, take it as one more data point that Trump (or at least his smarter minions) doesn’t expect to be in the Oval Office after 2020. From the Washington Post, “‘Take the land’: President Trump wants a border wall. He wants it black. And he wants it by Election Day”:

President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project…

Trump has repeatedly promised to complete 500 miles of fencing by the time voters go to the polls in November 2020, stirring chants of “Finish the Wall!” at his political rallies as he pushes for tighter border controls. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed just about 60 miles of “replacement” barrier during the first 2½ years of Trump’s presidency, all of it in areas that previously had border infrastructure.

The president has told senior aides that a failure to deliver on the signature promise of his 2016 campaign would be a letdown to his supporters and an embarrassing defeat. With the election 14 months away and hundreds of miles of fencing plans still in blueprint form, Trump has held regular White House meetings for progress updates and to hasten the pace, according to several people involved in the discussions…

Asked for comment, a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Trump is joking when he makes such statements about pardons…

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Repub Venality Open Thread: Trump Wants His WAAAAAHll & He Wants It NAOOOOWPost + Comments (50)

The GOP’s Leader/Base Racism ‘Dilemma’: When All You’ve Got Is A Bigot… (Part 2)

by Anne Laurie|  August 2, 20192:05 am| 41 Comments

This post is in: Civil Rights, Election 2020, Hail to the Hairpiece, Post-racial America, Racist-In-Chief, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Republicans in Disarray!, Trump Crime Cartel, All Too Normal, Clap Louder!, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
.

A normal president would be cruising to reelection on the strength of the economy. Trump’s racism is a liability, not a shrewd campaign strategy https://t.co/N68YW6zzYc

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) July 28, 2019

The “adults in the room” of the Permanent GOP Party embraced Donald Trump because he seemed like a bargain-basement solution to overcoming Hillary Clinton’s predicted landslide victory. Now that Trump’s gleefully ravaging the whole party’s chances in 2020, they’re stuck — they can’t cross the Oval Office Occupant’s rabid “Base” (not to mention the GOP traitors like McConnell and Nunes, who’ve traded their souls for Russian payola and ‘red meat’ votes), but all the still-normal Repub voters and “independents” can’t stomach the stench. Let a thousand tiny, tiny violins play!

One problem Trump's advisors don't seem to grasp is that being good for the president's base is not necessarily concomitant with being good electoral strategy, overall. This error cost Trump in 2018 although it may have helped the GOP in some Senate races in very red states. https://t.co/qOZnrjKcDQ

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 27, 2019

It’s a dumb strategy, but it’s not surprising since Parscale isn’t a real political operative, he’s a professional Trump ass-kisser. It’s what Trump wants to do, & it’s what happens when the campaign manager never says no & the brains of the operation is Kushner https://t.co/UjK3SQheWc

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 28, 2019

Trump’s racist, nativist rhetoric is now central to his re-election strategy to appeal to white voters, @ToluseO & @AshleyRParker report https://t.co/jEWtCkotDD

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) July 27, 2019

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The GOP’s Leader/Base Racism ‘Dilemma’: When All You’ve Got Is A Bigot… (Part 2)Post + Comments (41)

When the Dog Whistle Is Silver-Plated & Hand-Chased: Conservative Thinking At Its “Best”

by Anne Laurie|  July 19, 20196:37 pm| 70 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Venality, Clap Louder!, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own, Our Awesome Meritocracy

If you're Jewish and the use of "cosmopolitan" doesn't scare you, read some history https://t.co/yc5xTCN2ck

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 18, 2019

It’s all over political twitter, but the only mainstream-media pushback against Hawley I could find so far was from his hometown paper, the Kansas City Star:

The Anti-Defamation League in Missouri is calling on U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley to apologize for a speech he delivered this week slamming the “cosmopolitan elite” who “look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together—things like place and national feeling and religious faith.”

Hawley, during a keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference on Tuesday, said the “cosmopolitan agenda” drives politics on both the left and right.

“The left champions multiculturalism and degrades our common identity,” he said. “The right celebrates hyper-globalization and promises that the market will make everything right in the end, eventually … perhaps.”

He decried the “cosmopolitan consensus,” “cosmopolitan elite,” “cosmopolitan class,” and “cosmopolitan economy,” and argued that the “cosmopolitan agenda” has broken America’s national solidarity.

Karen Aroesty, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in St. Louis, said Hawley may not have intended to offend anyone with his speech. But terms like “cosmopolitan” and “globalist” have a sinister history as anti-Semitic dog whistles, and she said Hawley should apologize.

Hawley’s speech, “raised real concern for members of the Jewish community who are and should be acutely sensitive with increased incidents of antisemitism in the US and beyond,” Aroesty said. “We have asked the Senator for an apology for even unintended harm caused by the speech. For the Senator and all who have a public platform that comes with power, context matters. Words matter.”…

This conference sounds like a pretty convincing declaration of intellectual bankruptcy. Kudos to @JacobHeilbrunn for attending so the rest of us didn't have tohttps://t.co/v4Zk6BKF2s

— Christian Caryl (@ccaryl) July 18, 2019

From the NY Review of Books, “Retrofitting Trump’s GOP with a Veneer of Ideas”:

… Perhaps the most evocative and conclusive sign of Trump’s sway over the conservative movement came this week, however, when the recently established Edmund Burke Foundation in Washington held a meeting titled “National Conservatism” at the Ritz-Carlton. The conference aroused a good deal of controversy before it took place, but attracted a formidable array of conservative figureheads, including Peter Thiel, Tucker Carlson, John Bolton, and Senator Josh Hawley. The panelists included Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, Chris Buskirk, the publisher and editor of American Greatness, J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, Michael Anton, a former Trump administration National Security Council official who has inveighed against “birthright citizenship,” and Chris DeMuth, a former president of the American Enterprise Institute and now a distinguished fellow at the Trump-friendly Hudson Institute. The latter has recently extolled Trumpian nationalism in a lengthy essay in the Claremont Review of Books. “Harnessing today’s nationalist impulses,” DeMuth wrote, “is a task for conservatives and libertarians, who stand in the shoes of the liberal reformers of the middle and late nineteenth century.”

The event tried to do that. A July 14 invitation letter signed by David Brog, the president of the Burke Foundation and the former executive director of Christians United for Israel, noted that the conference was intended to help bring about the “revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing.” It was supposed to provide, Brog went on, “an intellectually serious alternative to the excesses of purist libertarianism, and in stark opposition to political theories grounded in race.” If nothing else, a consanguinity of thought quickly emerged.

This was a Trump-inspired counter-revolution, a conservative colloquy that aimed at creating a catechism purged of the verities of the Reagan era: a crusading foreign policy and an idolatry of free-market economics. Usually, intellectual movements precede the rise of political ones, but in this case, Trump’s camp followers are reverse-engineering an intellectual doctrine to match Trump’s basic instincts. The new national-conservatives want to form what Burke called “little platoons” to ground conservatism in what they referred to as Anglo-American traditions…

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When the Dog Whistle Is Silver-Plated & Hand-Chased: Conservative Thinking At Its “Best”Post + Comments (70)

Everything is awesome until there are trade-offs

by David Anderson|  June 11, 20198:51 am| 25 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Election 2020, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Early this year, Kaiser Family Foundation released a poll showing Medicare Advantage was popular:

(56 percent) favor a national Medicare-for-all plan

There is a fairly typical partisan split on all of these proposals. Buy-ins are more popular than replace the entire system plans. Incidentally that is why I think a Medicare/Medicaid buy-in approach is what will be on a Democrat’s agenda if there is a blue trifecta.

However, Kaiser then did something interesting. They offered trade-offs and support for Medicare for all sank:

This is the political problem for Medicare for All proponents. It is a massive change to the system which will produce winners and losers. It upsets the status quo bias that worked against the ACA 2009-2016 and it upsets the status quo bias that worked for the ACA in 2017 to present.

Managing the transition so that there is no fear that anyone could, in anyway, be worse off or perceive themselves to be worse off is impossible. The challenge is minimizing both the number and the power of people who are worse off or perceive themselves to be worse off. And that is a tough challenge if one assumes that healthcare is, to some degree, a positional good.

Trade-offs are tough. Passing out free ice cream is easy.

Everything is awesome until there are trade-offsPost + Comments (25)

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