527 thoughts on “Hall of mirrors update open thread”

  1. It took them long enough.
    In some of the fake reports the image they used for Wilson Edwards, the fake Swiss scientist, was a stock photo that had been used in product ads including some Chinese ads IIRC.

  2. Think of Facebook as this generation’s version of Phillip Morris. Selling a product which does massive damage, opposing any research into just how damaging it is, fighting any attempts to make it behave responsibly, and spending massively to undercut anyone (especially any politicians) who try to regulate it.
    PM and the other tobacco companies kept it up for decades, and are still going strong. Facebook might, too.

  4. Just finishing up An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecelia King.
    Zuckerberg and Sandberg are world-class serial liars, to everyone, including their own mothers.
    Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal … makes no difference. Once a corporation, always a juggernaut of ruthless company uber alles, including country, with all enemies to be silenced and vanguished with every justified means.
    “Lean in” is one of Sandberg’s empty platitudes. I turns out to he no different than the Mafia’s “Lean on him”.
    Google ‘s platitudinous “Don’t Be Evil” is same same. They always a hire a fucking MBA who then shows them how to at least monetize evil for a recurring revenue stream and then the corporate message becomes “Evil Is Being Done; Destroy Anyone Who Interferes.”
    I own Google stock, so whaddaya looking at?
    That a punk, Zuckerberg, can utter the words “There’s no such thing as privacy” in his dorm room and not be immediately stopped with a punch to the face and kick in the groin to at least interrupt the collossal monetization of evil is testimony to America’s essential full-of-shit sociopathic arrangement of incentives and disincentives blah stfu blah.
    But the genie is out of the bottle.
    Kill the genie and nuke the bottle.
    The Trump Evil and Facebook were made for each other.
    America and now the world are the victims.
    But we’re so free we aren’t permitted to do anything, as usual.
    Hey, look over there, we’re Metaverse now.

  6. Re-elect The President, Richard M. Nixon
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/before-russiagate-there-was-watergate/
    We Rome-burning Visigoths shall be destroyed all the way back to pre-history in the grand sweep of conservative movement pigfuckery.
    All Roman Emperors shall be fully restored, in flesh and statuary.
    Pinkerton has always had the snagged upturned corner of the contemptuous lip like a fascist guard dog feeling his own rabies.
    I wanna fight him.

  7. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that nobody noticed, at least in the narrow context of how some people currently think. It’s bad that people generally don’t care enough to notice in the first place, but that’s a much longer-term problem. It’s probably good in the shorter term that we aren’t hearing about how Biden’s letting all the terrorists off the hook, though.

  10. Airwars is the premier site for following the civilian casualties caused by US (and Russian) air strikes. Lots of data there. And it would have been nice if the American press and politicians followed this issue more closely.
    Biden has done a good thing here (with the Kabul exception). He’s terrible on Yemen so far. It will be interesting to see the results of the Pentagon investigation into their bombing campaign and civilian deaths–it’s been clear for years that they understate it by one or two orders of magnitude. (Anand Gopal in his own investigation found a factor of 31 difference between the number of air strikes that the military admitted had caused civilian casualties and the number that he found for the region and time that he investigated.) I don’t expect much in the way of accountability.

  13. IANAL, but if the phrase “responsible gun owners” comes up in any response, I will want to know how to tell them apart from Crumbleys. And if the answer is that you can only tell them apart after the fact because of the 2nd Amendment, then I will probably violate the posting rules.
    –TP

  14. The most telling reveal, I thought, was that the kid was doing searches, from school, for sources of ammunition. The school noticed, and contacted his mother about the “inappropriate Internet search.” His mother’s response? An email to her son saying “You have to learn not to get caught.” Oh.
    Gives one some idea of the home environment that the kid was being raised in. Makes it quite clear why the DA decided to charge the parents with manslaughter as well.

  15. The whole quote is worse than that, wj. From the NYT article:
    “LOL I’m not mad at you,” Jennifer Crumbley texted her son. “You have to learn not to get caught.”
    Four people dead, “LOL.” Let me violate the posting rules so TP has a precedent. She’s a stupid vicious murderous Clickbait-loving bitch. The good old US of A, a beacon on a hill, or some shit like that.

  17. Maybe DeSantis will recruit up all the little nutball “militia” members in his state to be part of his so-called State Guard. That would at least give his successor a centralize list of the dangerous maniacs. (With luck, they would get fingerprinted and their DNA recorded on recruitment. Though they would not, of course, have to be vaccinated.)

  18. While we are at all this open thread shiznitz:
    https://michaelhobbes.substack.com/p/students-self-censorship-lol
    Hetorodox Academy, like FIRE before them, are busy spinning the issues as hard as they can to try to paint universities as propagandistic left wing institutions. It’s hornswoggle. They are helping to perpetuate the problems by attacking the freedoms that make classroom discussion possible.
    Here’s an admission. I self-censor all the time as a college instructor because I have to think about creating a productive learning environment for everyone in my classroom. That means choosing texts that I think will challenge without alienating. And also, anyone who is concerned about the effects of self-censorship on student learning environments need to think about the effect not of tenure, but of job insecurity on faculty willingness to foster discussion in their classrooms.
    https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-28/editorial-colleges-overreliance-on-adjunct-faculty-is-bad-for-students-instructors-and-academic-freedom
    You cannot expect contingent faculty to take risks for diverse opinions if they are at risk of losing their job or losing money because they chose to promote a sense of open inquiry.

  20. Four people dead, “LOL.”
    I’m hoping for “Guilty on all counts” for both parents, and for sentences served consecutively.
    Not expecting, of course. But hoping. A) They richly deserve it. B) It might send a message — not one which would be heeded, but at least the gunnuts couldn’t say the weren’t warned.

  21. First off, I agree with the idea that those parents need to have the full weight of the law applied, so anything after this is not intending at mitigating. I like Colbert’s formulation about Kenosha, something to the effect of ‘I’m not a lawyer, but if this is what the law says, it ought to be changed’.
    Anyway, the parents ran, and have been caught
    https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/12/04/james-jennifer-crumbley-oxford-school-shooting-suspect/8865574002/
    It may be a measure of my cynicism, but I’m surprised the parents didn’t say they were being cancelled and didn’t have the crew that went to bat to the Kenosha crybaby puke offer to help them with their court costs.
    I’m also wondering if they will try to get the evidence of their texts thrown out, spousal communication is privileged, so wouldn’t parent -child be so as well? And if it isn’t, what is the theory that privileges one but not the other.

  22. “I’m also wondering if they will try to get the evidence of their texts thrown out, spousal communication is privileged, so wouldn’t parent -child be so as well? And if it isn’t, what is the theory that privileges one but not the other.”
    It’s all part of the unwritten Constitutional privacy “penumbras” that are being ripped away.
    Are we at peak judicial hypocrisy yet? No, we are not.

  24. Also, as to the same Rittenhouse-glorifying crew coming forward to cover the parents’ court costs: first of all, there’s still time. But secondly, on its face and in terms of the arguments that can be made about it, this is a really different case from the Rittenhouse one. Rittenhouse’s victims were, after all, evil rioters bent on destroying property and tearing the country apart. The kids Crumbley shot were ……… answering questions in English class?
    Also, as to what I said last night about the mother: it’s not exactly that I’d take it back, but I’m not convinced (from my armchair) that she’s any healthier mentally than her son was.

  25. I’m not convinced (from my armchair) that she’s any healthier mentally than her son was.
    I’ve been wondering the exact same thing. But maybe it’s because I literally cannot think of any other explanation. When I try, my brain just sputters, and stops.

  26. There does seem to be a sense amongst a not insignificant proportion of the US population that the 2nd Amendment entitles them to do almost anything they like with their guns.

  27. Who the hell buys a 15 year old a 9mm pistol?
    From my own personal armchair, these seem like careless, reckless, irresponsible people. Dare I say, stupid.
    If your carelessness results in someone’s death, that’s involuntary manslaughter. Intent is not required. So FWIW, the charges seem reasonable to me. From my own personal armchair.
    This is not a gun rights issue. It’s a holding people responsible for their careless behavior issue.
    More of this please.

  28. Dare I say, stupid.
    I have been thinking “stupid” all morning. Just as there are various kinds of intelligence, there are surely various kinds of stupidity. This is the kind that combines with Dunning-Kruger-based arrogance and is fanned into destructive flame by … well, factors we know about.

  29. I literally cannot think of any other explanation.
    I’m happy to let the psychologists evaluate the mother’s mental health. If she’s mentally ill, that would explain a lot.
    That said, plain old garden variety not giving a sh*t about how your behavior might affect other people covers a lot of ground, too.

  30. I think it might have quite a lot to do with the gun right argument, though.
    The political movement to remove all restrictions around guns has fostered an anything goes mentality. That’s a long way from claiming all gun owners are irresponsible, but it’s not hard to find a myriad accounts of those who are.
    This is arguably just an extreme example.

  31. “Are we at peak judicial hypocrisy yet?”
    I don’t mean to advise Snarki in her area of expertise …. snark … but may we please retire this word “hypocrisy” when we reference the behavior of the unreservedly ruthless and evil conservative movement?
    It’s the sincere ones you have to watch, and every colossal, fully rehearsed, and long-auditioned fucking lie all of these thieving filth told Congress, the press, and the public, and that goes for their low, sniveling, smirking apologists and willing dupes too, about the law bablahblah was thoroughly and intentionally meant to be lie after lie to further their ends by every and all means.
    Did the headline when the Hindenberg blew up read “Oh, the Hypocrisy!”?
    When Pearl Harbor was obliterated, did the headlines read: “Japan Declares Hypocrisy on U.S.!”?
    In those old Looney Tunes, when Bugs Bunny, channeling Winston Churchill, marble-mouthed his threats of retribution to Elmer Fudd, or was it Daffy Duck, did he declare, “As you know, this means Hypocrisy?”
    No, he did not.
    When the Allies reached the camps in the closing days of World War II, did the some GI from Hoboken, doffing his cap and scratching his head, say. “Welp, one thing we have to admit about good ole Adolf … the man certainly was not a Hypocrite!”
    Why not? Because in all of those instances, human hypocrisy was far down the list of complaints capturing the immediate attention.
    We are dealing with pure, unmitigated Evil, which in its entirety must be physically removed from the face of the Earth:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/why-tucker-carlson-defending-alex-jones/620906/
    That said, I am thus far a prime, and lone example of hypocrisy on these pages, if you need a real-time example.
    Because I haven’t yet practiced what I’m preaching about what needs to be done.
    Hold yer applause.
    It’s just that I’m struggling with both of my legs stuck in only one leg of my pants, which makes it difficult to reach my car keys.
    Meanwhile, will Charles be along soon to counsel the Crumbleys (again, what is with the spot-on names of these people? Hi, my name is Joe Death, please vote for Trump! Coinkidink?) that maybe their intended choice of the Canadian Healthcare System seems just a mite-bit ill-considered on their crumbling freedom scale?
    I understand there WOULD be a waiting list for emergency bullet wound attention north of the border, ya know, if bullets were as freely permitted to fly up ‘ere like they do in the good ‘Ole.

  32. This is arguably just an extreme example.
    I wish that were true.
    The outcome is thankfully unusual. Although not unusual enough that we can’t call it an almost daily occurrence.
    I’m sure gun rights folks are going to frame this as a gun rights thing. Thoughts and prayers, but we mustn’t use this as an excuse to put any limits on our precious gun rights.
    I say fine, have it your way. You have the right to own and carry firearms. And what comes with that right is the burden of exercising it in a responsible way.
    Fail to do that, and you will be required to bear the consequences of that.
    Four dead kids. As a point in fact, there is nothing this kid or his parents can do, ever, to fully bear the consequences of that. Nothing. It is a debt they will owe forever, and the burden of it falls not just on them, but on the families and loved ones of the people this kid killed.
    Rights are not license. They incur the burden of exercising them responsibly.
    The sooner that sinks in, the better.

  33. “Who the hell buys a 15 year old a 9mm pistol?”
    Well, that cat is not just out … but totally now bagless.
    I chronicled here maybe five years ago my experience with my brother’s 15-year old step son, whose birth Dad, a jackass, festoooned the kid with military grade weaponry, semi-automatic rifles, which in my presence the twat (not a bad kid, ya know EXCEPT) flounced around the living room aiming one of them, safety secured at Hillary Clinton on the TV one day.
    Long story short, I advised my brother that I was done visiting his house unless that was fucking stopped. Next time I received an apology from the kid AND I was invited to observe the new locked gun safe in the basement.
    The kid did place a small spray bottle labeled “Anti-Liberal Disinfectant” on top of the safe for my full perusing enjoyment.”
    So far, so good. The kid is now a fully fledged Navy Seal (he’s a trained killer, at my socialist expense, motherfuckers, and could take me out with one hand; I’ll show up at that fight, but from a distance, looking through a high-powered scope, just to be safe) and his occasional political bloviations make me wonder, no, I’m fucking certain, which side he would have been on at the Capitol on 1/6.
    I don’t think we realize how many of these louts did NOT take an oath to protect any of US, because he’s a stinking conservative Trumper.
    We’re towelheads, kooks, and BLM to so many of them.
    But, ya know, nice kid.
    I’m mean, he’s not a Wagner fan.

  34. The sooner that sinks in, the better.
    Sorry to quibble over a phrase, but it’s never going to “sink in.” It’s going to have to be forced on them, and the path to making that happen is going to be a long and, I’m afraid, destructive one.

  35. “I say fine, have it your way. You have the right to own and carry firearms. And what comes with that right is the burden of exercising it in a responsible way.”
    This. They deserve no quarter.

  37. It may be a measure of my cynicism, but I’m surprised the parents didn’t say they were being cancelled and didn’t have the crew that went to bat to the Kenosha crybaby puke offer to help them with their court costs.
    I believe they said they ran “out of fear for their safety.”
    Maybe they thought that some of the parents of the kids their son shot might be the same kind of RWNJ gun nuts they are. If any of those parents are (no info on that front), possibly even a reasonable concern.

  38. There does seem to be a sense amongst a not insignificant proportion of the US population that the 2nd Amendment entitles them to do almost anything they like with their guns.
    But only for a very narrow definition of “them.” You’ll never hear them argue that, for example, liberals (or, shudder, blacks) have a right to do so. Maybe because they take the 2nd Amendment’s “right of the people” and define “people” to mean only and exclusively people who look and think like them.

  39. Rights are not license. They incur the burden of exercising them responsibly.
    Demanding “rights” with no responsibilities is what children (and some teenagers) do. Being an adult is all about responsibilities.
    The behavior of folks like these make it clear that, regardless of their calendar age, they are children not adults. Which is probably what they love seeing in Trump.

  40. They deserve no quarter.
    No. They deserve justice–in the traditional sense of the term. What deserves no quarter is the political movement that has birthed, fostered, and encouraged this sort of infantile nihilism, a movement consisting of reactionary wanna’ be Bolsheviks. Calling them fascists is being too polite.

  44. I believe they said they ran “out of fear for their safety.”
    So they understand, however vaguely, the concept of risk to the safety of individuals.
    Which blows one hole in their potential defence.

  45. A fake arm? Really?!?!?
    I distinctly remember having heard/read such cases before. Could even be that there also was a case of this as a business idea.

  46. I wonder what their neighbors, friends, and relatives thought of the Crumbleys before this. Friendly? Respectable? Good parents? A wholesome, traditional family? “Responsible” citizens?
    For all I know, both parents had criminal records. If they did not — if they were “law-abiding Americans” until this week — then maybe the 2nd Amendment fetishists can explain how they know whether their next door neighbor, coworker, or golf partner is a “responsible gun owner” or (to borrow a phrase coined in these pages many gun-massacre threads ago) “a criminal who has not been caught yet”.
    –TP

  47. Because I haven’t yet practiced what I’m preaching about what needs to be done.
    Please God let this be the case forever. They also serve who only stand and comment.

  49. I’ve made sure to “bare arms” in the local pharmacy (chemist, for ye brits)
    But it was the pharmacist that was doing the shooting, and I was taking the shot.

  50. there can be no responsible gun owners, because having a gun is an irresponsible act in itself.
    A (single shot) hunting rifle? Not necessarily seeing that.
    For the vast majority of guns (and the owners of the vast majority of guns), you are correct. But not for all of them.

  51. The licensed owner a registered single-shot hunting rifle would be an actually no-air-quotes responsible gun owner, in my book. Might still be a kook or an asshole, of course.
    Do gun owners who insist that licensing and registration are an infringement of their Liberty(TM) feel the same way about their cars as they do about their guns? Or do they consider their guns more essential to their Liberty(TM) than their cars? If the latter, they’re not so much irresponsible as just plain morons.
    –TP

  55. Do gun owners who insist that licensing and registration are an infringement of their Liberty(TM) feel the same way about their cars as they do about their guns?
    Not currently (in general). But give the ultra libertarians time to crank up on Fox**, and they will start having hysterics about that, too.
    ** Just requires one of Koch brothers get a ticket from a red-light camera or something and it will happen.

  56. Just requires one of Koch brothers get a ticket from a red-light camera or something and it will happen.
    For David Koch that would be a grave occurrence…

  57. For David Koch that would be a grave occurrence…
    Ah, yes. Forgot that. Well no doubt the Mercers can puck up the slack…

  60. The Crumbleys are but bit players in the juggernaut of death the state of Michigan brings to the murderous, election-stealing nest of conservative vermin who threaten my country:
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/an-army-of-crumbleys
    As the Lieutenant Gummint Rapist of Texas has pronounced: “There are more important things than living”.
    Let us make that so for the evil, subhuman Republican Party.
    None of them deserve quarter.

  61. Renowned On(an)cologist admits cancer spreading like wildfire through America’s public schools. Demands privatizing school gunfire into private religious schools, and more spanking by the invisible Hand Of Jesus, especially for her husband and her boyfriend, who kinda like it.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/4/2067564/-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-wonders-why-we-never-closed-schools-or-businesses-because-of-cancer
    She also claims what we all suspected but was covered up by Truth: All 13 victims of and the many injured by the two local armed oncologists charged with eliminating cancer at Columbine High School were members of a secret cult of tumor-mongering cancer spreaders in that socialist school and the innocent oncologists wrongly shot themselves out of the misplaced fear that they had caught cancer too from cinematic-like blood spatters mysteriously emanating from their classmates’ infected bodies in the hallways and cafeteria.
    Punk fake all-American Christian murderer Franklin Graham said as much days later in the memorial service across from the high school in his “thoughts and prayers” for vengeance against all of us in the audience who he so far had not forced to live in a theocratic despotism.
    I was there. I did nothing. For which I am guilty.
    When I was a kid, we got paddled for coming down with cancer in school, and believe me, cancer was nipped in the bud.

  62. Well, there *is* a transmissible form of cancer (surprisingly!)
    It’s been devastating the endangered “tasmanian devils” on the island of Tasmania, spread when they bite one another on the face.
    The application to the MAGA “leopards eating faces” party is clear. Chomp away, leopards!

  64. Well, there *is* a transmissible form of cancer (surprisingly!)
    HPV!
    which some “conservatives” are also opposed to vaccinating against.

  65. HPV!
    which some “conservatives” are also opposed to vaccinating against.
    Well, it involves sex, so of course they are twitchy about it.

  66. More precisely, vaccinating for HPV might reduce a young woman’s mortal fear of sex, and the whole moral order is put in jeopardy if young women are not terrified into celibacy until they are safely married off to their new master.

  69. Wow, Bob Dole voted for and endorsed Trump twice, I thought he was the nice guy who lost gracefully and the peddled Viagra on talk shows as well as founding a free school meal program with McGovern.
    What happened?

  74. One of my gripes with Dole is him pushing so hard for using ethanol as a vehicle fuel.
    He was from a state where a significant part of the economy is producing corn. For which ethanol is a major market. So not surprising he acted in the interests of his constituents.

  75. So not surprising he acted in the interests of his constituents.
    At the expense of everyone else. But, then, he was a politician.

  78. Nice little democracy you had there.
    We haven’t quite lost it. Yet. But the effort is certainly closer to success than ever before.

  79. so strange that “conservatives”, draped in eagles and jesus t-shirts, keep siding with failed insurrections.
    so strange.

  81. from the Atlantic piece:

    Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline.

  82. “Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline.”
    I wonder if this is meaningless statistic. I suspect that noninsurgents are more likely to come from counties where the white share of the population is declining because, well, the white share of the population is declining.
    “The nation is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, but these changes have been more muted in rural counties compared with urban and suburban ones. The white share of the population fell 8 percentage points since 2000 in the suburbs, 7 points in the urban core and only 3 points in rural counties.” From https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/

  83. “Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline.”
    I would wager that the great plurality of the insurgents came in for their little party from metropolitan and/or suburban/exurban areas….and not so much from rural ones. Population diversifying data here.
    It has been observed by others that the great waves of immigration from what were then characterized as shithole countries (Italy, Poland, Russia, etc.) during the latter 19th and earlier 20th centuries were also periods of heightened class and social strife in this great nation of ours. The immigration clampdown of the 1920’s put an end to so many of these undesirables washing up on our shores.
    And now they have joined their Scot-Irish/English/German brethren in the never ending circle of hateful racial resentment. Funny how that works, that those who were once outcasts could also become “true” patriots, “true” americans, and exhibit their love for this nation by demonstrating they, too, could become xenophobic assholes when it comes to today’s risk takers from Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
    It is ironic to see the descendants of those hard working, risk taking folks who came over in steerage now go full xenophobe based on skin color and religion. And as for black folks? Well, I guess if you can’t beat white racism, you join in to show your real bona-fides.

  85. I would wager that the great plurality of the insurgents came in for their little party from metropolitan and/or suburban/exurban areas….and not so much from rural ones.
    That was also finding made by the study referenced in the quote I cited.
    The folks from the Jan 6 festivities were typically middle aged, white, employed, not poor, from cities and suburbs.
    They were unhappy about the election and figured a riot was the best response. In some cases, more than a riot.
    Draw whatever meaning you like from all of that.
    It’s reasonably likely that a variety of kinds of crap is going to hit the fan in 2024. If so, it is also likely to fly in more than one direction.
    Trumpsters are pissed off, so are the rest of us.

  86. Bad news for would-be election stealers here. All would be poll workers for next year’s elections are being required to submit proof of vaccination.
    Not that the Trump cult looks likely to have much of an impact in California. But still, nice to see.

  87. Serious question: How safe are vaccination certificates? In other words how easy are forged ones to obtain that would not raise eyebrows?
    Over here in Germany there was a case of an anti-vaxxer working in a vaccination center using saline solution instead of vaccine on between 800 and 1500 (unwitting) people before getting caught. What are the safeguards against that in the US?
    I have the nagging suspicion that a fake vax scheme (with willing participants) is mainly prevented by stupidity (talking about the scheme in public) and paranoia (‘what if this fake vaccine is actually genuine? I better not take the risk.’).
    And lots of RWers are vaxxed but keep silent about it because it would damage their reputation in Q-land.

  88. In other words how easy are forged ones to obtain that would not raise eyebrows?
    i could make five before lunch.
    it’s an oddly-sized paper card with some boilerplate text and a few lines for the signatures of the people who administered the shots.

  89. i could make five before lunch.
    None of which would match the public health records, assuming that we’re talking fake certificates for the non-vaccinated. It’s one thing to pass a forged certificate by an overworked bouncer at the door of a bar; it’s another to pass it through a government agency that has access to the health records and can easily check at least a sample of the certificates.
    Using a forged certificate is a felony offense. Who’s going to take that chance?

  92. Yes. Lest we forget: there are many, many more potential candidates for the Darwin prize than those who complete the fateful last step.

  93. “Using a forged certificate is a felony offense. Who’s going to take that chance?”
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/6/2067884/-Gym-Jordan-says-Liberals-must-be-destroyed-because-they-re-like-Nazis-and-also-Slavery
    Forging vax cards is merely another malignant weapon in the conservative movement’s murder arsenal.
    “It’s one thing to pass a forged certificate by an overworked bouncer at the door of a bar; it’s another to pass it through a government agency”
    To the violent subhuman conservative, crypto-religious, crypto-libertarian movement, a government agency is an overworked bouncer in a bar to be mobbed, beaten, and left for dead, as 1/6 illustrated in technicolor.
    DeSantis will use his new improved murderous shock troops on those who deviate from his Stalinist line:
    https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2021/12/06/uf-researchers-felt-pressure-to-destroy-covid-19-data-faculty-report-says/
    Covid-19 is fake. The vaccines are fake.
    Why not fake vaccine cards to go with?
    Heck, the printing presses in the basement’s of Mar-a-Lago and RNC headquarters are working overtime printing the fake cards.
    It’s violent worms all the way down.

  94. it’s always remarkable to me the lengths people will go to to avoid just doing the right thing.
    “doing the right thing” here doesn’t necessarily mean getting vaccinated. although that definitely qualifies as one of the possible right things to do, and in fact is right at the top of the list.
    but if you just don’t want the vax for whatever reason, just wear a freaking mask when you have to be around other people and don’t go places that require vaccination.
    so much simpler than creating fake documents.

  96. it’s an oddly-sized paper card with some boilerplate text and a few lines for the signatures of the people who administered the shots.
    Some cards (maybe not yours?) also have the label from the vax bottle, showing the lot and shot #s. One for each shot.

  97. it’s an oddly-sized paper card with some boilerplate text and a few lines for the signatures of the people who administered the shots.
    In California, we are going with a government issued QR code which you can display on your phone. Not impossible to fake, but at least requiring some level of technical knowledge, which filters out the anti-science types.

  98. Well, won’t this be fun?
    Canada begins human trials on inhalable COVID vaccines
    Now it won’t be enough to avoid the jab. You’ll have to avoid even breathing. At least in any indoor venue, where the evil government (or evil big business) might be saturating the air with vaccine.
    Or maybe protection against inhaling vaccine will provide a rationale for starting to wear masks…. 😉

  99. i got labels for my first two shots (at a FEMA-run site) but no label for my booster (at a local supermarket pharmacy counter).

  100. I got the QR code by presentig my vaccination passport and the piece of paper with the labels from the vax bottle (plus my German ID card). Now we have reached the stage around here where the QR code is accepted as proof of my vaccination status but not the original documents I used to obtain it.

  101. In California, we are going with a government issued QR code which you can display on your phone. Not impossible to fake, but at least requiring some level of technical knowledge, which filters out the anti-science types.
    But still possible to check against the public health records. One case that they are in the process of making a big deal over is the registered nurse who was accepting payments to put false information into the government database.

  102. One case that they are in the process of making a big deal over is the registered nurse who was accepting payments to put false information into the government database.
    That sort of thing is always possible. For example, you could have someone in a hospital fake birth records, and then use birth certificates those to apply for Social Security numbers for that fake person.
    Presto! Solid fake background IDs to sell to the highest bidder. (And no worries that someone will notice that the actual holder of that SSN died.) I don’t know if anyone has seized that business opportunity yet or not. But it clearly would be possible.

  103. Appeasing pussy Democrats kowtow to subhuman fifth column Putin-licking Trumpian butt licking traitorous insurrectionist Republican vermin and torpedo a decent American’s dream.
    I’m quite sure Russians living under Putin’s murderous regime will now think twice about emigrating to the piece of fucking dog shit America.
    Putin will have the murderous conservative movement’s back when they start murdering all of we Commie enemies in the nascent savagely violent Civil War the former filth have declared.
    Omarova happily, for now, temporarily is free to arm herself with military grade weaponry to act in her own self-defense fake cracker Kennedy decides he wants to get the whites of his subhuman confederate eyes within her shooting range again.
    I wonder if Trump’s fellow travelers at the Russian Embassy in DC will protest this rancid, malignant treatment of their former countryman by hateful, cocksucking America.
    We are a fucking disgrace.

  106. That sort of thing is always possible. For example, you could have someone in a hospital fake birth records, and then use birth certificates those to apply for Social Security numbers for that fake person.
    Eventually, down the road somewhere. I feel reasonably sure that the systems don’t allow the front line workers to add new birth records from 20 years ago. When I worked for my state’s legislature, I had to learn (so I could explain, or attempt to explain) a bunch about our state’s intake software for public services. Permissions were fine-grained, every transaction with the master database was logged, logs were preserved for long enough for almost all discrepancies to surface.
    Older software here is nowhere near as secure. We handed out a dismaying amount of unemployment insurance cash to people who didn’t even exist in the last couple years.

  107. I feel reasonably sure that the systems don’t allow the front line workers to add new birth records from 20 years ago.
    I was thinking more of someone making an investment. Falsely register a birth as happening now. Knowing there would be a market for the ID later.
    Although I suppose there might be an argument that most criminals are not capable of that kind of delayed gratification….

  108. “For example, you could have someone in a hospital fake birth records, and then use birth certificates those to apply for Social Security numbers for that fake person.”
    Really diabolical if they print a birth announcement in the local Honolulu newspaper JUST so it can be used for a President a half century later.

  110. hey, bobbyp. When someone denounces the current economic environment by comparing it to the 1920s (even if he says it’s worse), I suspect him of not knowing what he’s talking about on some critical points. If he compares it to the Gilded Age, I can at least hope he has a clue about the economy and how it might be reformed. (The level of political corruption is similar, too.)

  111. Bobbyp, thanks for the link. It started off a bit slow, but got better and better. And I think Karl Polanyi is a better person to be citing over Marx, and not only because of the hundred year disastrous legacy.

  113. ” why wait for the next election to make his Speaker of the House? Vote Trump in as Minority Leader right now.”
    It sure would make it easier to get Trump in front of a House committee investigating the insurrection, plus any other committees that have questions, including ethics committees.
    So, GO FOR IT, TRUMP!

  114. It sure would make it easier to get Trump in front of a House committee
    Well, maybe. Then again, he might spend as much or more time away as he did as President. Republicans might end up looking back at the hapless McCarthy as a (relative) paragon of competence.

  115. Merry Christmas arrives early for FOX News killers:
    https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1468577901083860995?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
    FOX News “personalities” blame Jewish death lasers and call for the internment and murder of all homeless folks, of which Joe Biden is one.
    Fellow subhuman “Personalities” from the Third Reich refused to comment for this article.
    Next up: the opening of the Novichok Christmas stockings. Mom, this little bottle of vodka tastes funny.

  116. Merry Christmas arrives early for FOX News killers
    I propose a conspiracy theory: the arsonist was a far right individual who was protesting Fox being way too liberal. Dubious, but why let reality intrude into the MAGAverse?

  118. Vote Trump in as Minority Leader right now.
    I believe the rules are that the minority leader has to be a member of the House. That doesn’t apply to Speaker.

  120. Possibly more important to Trump, as either minority leader or Speaker, you have to do actual work. There’s a bunch of things that can’t be shoved off on staff or assistants.

  122. Possibly more important to Trump, as either minority leader or Speaker, you have to do actual work.
    As President you have to do actual work, too. Hard work and lots of it. Trump didn’t then. Why would he believe he would have to actually work as minority leader or Speaker? Who would make him?

  123. the arsonist was a far right individual
    crazy homeless guy.
    re: bobbyp’s TAP article – I think it’s useful to distinguish between free markets and/or market economies, and capitalism.
    they are not the same thing.
    I’m not sure what to say about Brooks. the (R) party has hitched its wagon to middle class white resentment and tax cuts for rich people for basically my entire adult life. there’s nothing particularly ‘conservative’ about any of that.
    the penny drops whenever it drops, I guess.

  124. I read the Brooks piece.
    He makes the case, rightfully I s’pose, that Marxism, Communism, Burke’s hated French Revolution, all of the conservative bugaboos had within them the seeds of their own epic, disastrous failures from the get go.
    But he elides the same train of thought for his beloved conservatism, ahh, things just got off track because of some faulty actors and thinking, the “ism” of it is still pristinely intact.
    I say bullshit.
    The malignant metastasizing tumors of American conservatism, and its sister bullshit nationalist toxic capitalist versions abroad, including Buchanan’s/Dreher’s murderous faux Christianity, will be wiped off the face of the Earth just like the other “isms”.
    Raise Brooks’ taxes.
    He’ll run back to the fold like a good little purist.

  126. Come now. There are plenty of reports that on an average Tuesday, President Trump rose late, had some breakfast, watched some Fox, then wandered down the hall to do some work. Everyone knew not to schedule nine o’clock briefings tomorrow, if it was a day the President was starting late. Speaker Trump would need to be some place promptly on most days to call things to order and set the House to its work. Installing Trump as Speaker is the House Republicans saying not only are they not going to govern, they’re not even going to go through the motions.

  127. he elides the same train of thought for his beloved conservatism, ahh, things just got off track because of some faulty actors and thinking, the “ism” of it is still pristinely intact.
    Actually, he explicitly acknowledges that conservatism includes features which make what we have seen a possibility. Not an inevitability, but a possibility. Bad actors can exacerbate the situation (and have). But then, any philosophy can go off track. See Cambodia, for just one example. Here’s hoping our case doesn’t get that bad.

  128. Installing Trump as Speaker is the House Republicans saying not only are they not going to govern, they’re not even going to go through the motions.
    Steve Benen (not Bannon!) wrote a book on that. The GOP is a post policy party (apart from being a death cult which is merely optional).

  129. the GOP is a nationwide theater troupe, full of people who want to make the big time performing Republicanism on Fox, but who are now grinding out Scenes From The Culture Wars for their local audiences.

  130. I continue to be at a loss to understand what exactly it is that the Fox audience wants.
    What are they angry about? What would make them happy?

  131. Brooks wrote his usual stuff about the wisdom of received cultural mores and “sentiments”, all of which is very nice…but….absolutely banal. Because where the rubber meets the road is the conservative penchant to justify restrictions on human freedom and their worship of untrammeled power held by those they approve of. Thus in the realm of public policy, they always come up short…favoring the rich and the comfortable.
    Where they really went off the rails was when they hitched their philosophical star to capitalism….a revolutionary concept in human affairs in 1789. So much for “received wisdom” and “going slow”.
    We continue to live with the unintended consequences of that union.

  132. The more time goes by, the more I think that cleek is absolutely the prophet for our time. His 08.30 above only confirms it. And so, russell, I think the answer to your question is that they want the humiliation and destruction of anything and anybody who could be categorised as “liberal”, or who professes to care (let alone actually cares) for the common good (see their contemptuous use of “SJWs”, as if social justice was a pathetic delusion). Presumably because such concerns show them, as in a mirror, their own selfishness and egocentricity, and this makes them angry.
    But as for what would make them happy, after the destruction of their perceived enemies, that is indeed the question. Perhaps they cannot be happy, without enemies? Maybe they would turn on each other and eat their own tail?

  133. Finding new enemies is their specialty. And in case of doubt there’s always ‘the Jews’ (who need not even be present. Shadow enemies are always useful because they are extra scary).

  134. russell: Abe Lincoln had “what they want” figured out, and explained in his Cooper Hall speech.
    Even total victory will not satisfy them or “make them happy”. So might as well just crush them.

  136. they want the humiliation and destruction of anything and anybody who could be categorised as “liberal”, or who professes to care (let alone actually cares) for the common good
    my thought about this is that people who get their information from Fox etc believe their lives and values are threatened by liberals.
    so their anger and fear reactions are constantly being stoked.
    I think people are accountable for what they choose to fill their heads with, so I think they own some responsibility for believing the stuff that winds them up. they can change the channel, right?
    but I also hold Fox et al responsible for provoking all of that.
    and all of that said, I find it hard to believe that the motivation is purely negative – purely a matter of wanting to destroy people who they think are their enemies. I’m inclined to assume there is some positive motivation in there as well.
    my sister and her family are more or less the kind of folks I’m talking about. they range from my hard-core Trump supporting brother in law and niece, to my sister, who is more of a garden-variety evangelical conservative.
    if I were to ask my sister what she actually wants – what a good life looks like, to her – it would basically be (a) move out of downtown Phoenix to get away from the crowds and California expatriates, and (b) be left alone, i.e. not have government telling her what she can and can’t do.
    those are actually pretty modest desiderata. they are goals that are mostly achievable, and where they aren’t achievable (i.e., there are always things that “government” is going to require you to do or not do) they can probably be whittled down to something like an annoyance.
    rather than something that requires half or more of the population to be destroyed.
    the issue here is this: none of us are going away. so we need to figure this stuff out.
    I can work with people who basically just want to be left the hell alone. there are probably ways to accommodate most of that. when I say “I can work with”, I just mean that I’m sure I can find some kind of common ground at the level of public policy that will more or less work for all parties concerned.
    but we can’t get to that when the conversation is all about secret plans to inject micro-chips in everybody, or lizard people selling babies for sex.
    so I’d rather try to understand what these people want – in a positive sense – than argue about crazy paranoid theories.
    what would make them happy? for my sister, it’s moving out of downtown Phoenix and growing vegetables in her yard and not having to deal with all of the annoying regulations that come with living in an urban area.
    for my brother in law, it’s having guns and dogs and going fishing a lot.
    I’m trying to figure out how to focus on that stuff.
    what is it that these folks want? what – what *positive* thing – would make them happy?
    there are probably some answers to that that aren’t achievable. everybody is not going to be an evangelical Christian, some people are going to say happy holidays, some folks aren’t going to want you open carrying a gun in their home or store or even neighborhood.
    but perhaps there are some answers to that that are achievable. so I’m looking for those.

  137. What are they angry about?
    Whatever Fox tells them they should be angry about.
    What would make them happy?
    What already makes them happy – having something to be angry about.

  138. I continue to be at a loss to understand what exactly it is that the Fox audience wants.
    What are they angry about? What would make them happy?

    they’re angry at strawman Democrats that wingnut media parades around for them. Fox News viewers don’t want to be happy. they want to be angry – that’s why they watch Fox (or OANN, Newsmax, etc. if Fox isn’t hardcore enough for them).

  139. I continue to be at a loss to understand what exactly it is that the Fox audience wants.
    What are they angry about? What would make them happy?
    I think your 10:59 comes close. What they want, basically, is for everything to stop changing all the time! Not that even close to “everything” is doing so, but lots is.
    They are mostly OK with technology changing — so long as it doesn’t require them to learn a whole new job. An auto mechanic may pine for the days when a wrench and a welder were enough to deal with a car. But he can live with having gradually had to learn how to deal with computer chips everywhere. However learning to program those chips would be a bridge too far.
    But what makes them really uncomfortable is social change. New kinds of people they are expected to deal with as equals. (As inferiors was not too bad, mostly.) New ways they are expected to speak and act. (Although manners having relaxed enough that they can be crude in public doesn’t seem to be a problem. If only their children’s manners hadn’t changed, too.)
    That’s a big part of why they dislike government: they don’t mind everything the government does. Just the things that require them to behave differently. Having the government put a highway in is fine. (Well, except if it forces them to move.) Because they will cheerfully use it. But having it put in “affordable housing” in their neighborhood? Not so much. (Maybe if their kids were going to live there. But not “those people” i.e. folks not like them.) Government forcing other people to conform to their mores is great. Forcing them to conform to, or even just accept, different mores . . . isn’t.
    So, what does Fox do for them? Mostly, it makes them feel like they are not alone. Obviously there are lots of people who disagree with them — otherwise the government wouldn’t keep changing things. But Fox lets them know that there are lots of people who agree with them, feel like they are part of something bigger than their immediate social circle. Yes, it’s constantly telling them about more new stuff being (supposedly) forced on them, and getting them upset. But that’s not the attraction. The attraction is the sense of community.

  140. A less snarky follow-on: The phenomenon I observe among my many conservative friends is that they’re extremely pleasant, happy, fun, nice people in person, at least if you don’t talk politics with them.
    If they discuss politics, even with people they agree with, they get at least a little bit angry. If they discuss politics with someone who challenges them, they get angrier still.
    On social media, they sound like fire-breathing crazy people, at least the ones who discuss politics on social media. Not all of them do. Some of them do almost constantly, and they’re the worst.
    The main takeaway for me is the contrast between their non-political selves and their political selves. For some, it’s like two completely different people.

  141. I sympathise with and respect your desire for a positive way forward, russell. But when you say
    their anger and fear reactions are constantly being stoked
    I fear that this is not only true, but has been true for long enough that it has created a sort of impenetrable feedback loop (if I understand that term correctly). Of course one does not want to see people one loves as sort of zombies totally in the thrall of negative forces and unreachable by negotiation on benign wishes or impulses, but if a substantial proportion of the population has fallen to a cult, the chances of deprogramming on that scale seem limited. And since an essential part of the cult’s programming has been to paint its adversaries as incapable of anything benign, any possibility of any kind of positive development is strangled at or before birth.
    I am so very sorry to be so negative, and the last thing I want is to depress you, of all people. I only hope I am wrong. But this is how it is beginning to seem to me.
    (I would have said that the only possibility to improve anything is to work like crazy to elect Dems at the local and national levels, as you have often remarked, so that eventually policies can be enacted which benefit the relevant third of the population so inarguably that they slowly come to let go of their prejudices. And as you know I have often discussed various ways I thought the Dems might improve their electoral chances. But I am losing faith that this can be accomplished, in the face of the skewed SCOTUS, gerrymandering etc. Again, I hope I am wrong.)

  142. Addendum: as we have often noted, the actual policies of the GOP or (as we now should call it) the Party of Trump not only do nothing to benefit the people we are talking about, they actively do them harm. So the essential task which Fox et al perform is to distract them from reality by creating straw monsters for them to hate, so they go on voting for the GOP/POT. And this is done with great expertise and therefore success, so that it is literally impossible to discover what they might want, or what might make them happy, since they have been lured into a shadow realm which bears almost no relation to reality.

  143. if I were to ask my sister what she actually wants – what a good life looks like, to her – it would basically be (a) move out of downtown Phoenix to get away from the crowds and California expatriates, and (b) be left alone, i.e. not have government telling her what she can and can’t do.
    Serious question. Why does she live in downtown Phoenix?

  144. First thing: if you have cable, be aware you’re paying money to Fox News. They collect fees from the cable companies based on the total number of cable subscribers, not Fox viewers.
    Second: if you want to be left alone, stay the hell away from me. I mean that in the nicest possible way. You want to be Amish? Be Amish. You want to stable your horse and buggy next door to my condo? Sorry, bub.
    Third: you can burden your mental universe with whatever deities you like, but if you want me to live as if I fall for that delusion too then go to (your) hell. Leave me alone. I’m looking at you, SCOTUS.
    Finally: it may already be too late to salvage American democracy by The Rules. (The Rules currently being: Republicans are allowed to cheat; Democrats aren’t.) If the “white working class” would rather have its grievance than tolerate “change”, let’s give them some more things to grieve about. Like being shunned by people who may also be white and work for a living but are not racist theocratic fascists by temperament.
    –TP

  145. I fear that this is not only true, but has been true for long enough that it has created a sort of impenetrable feedback loop (if I understand that term correctly).
    Basically correct. The right wing propagandists are exploiting amygdala reactions and the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Execute) to keep their audiences in a perpetual state of outrage. That’s the basis of the “flood the channels with shit”strategy. If the propaganda can stay far enough ahead of the loop to interrupt the decision making loop before any resistance can be organized (the execute phase), then the resistance can be paralyzed.
    Propaganda shock and awe.
    The left has nothing like it, and so far has no answer to it.

  146. For some, it’s like two completely different people.
    yup
    this is not only true, but has been true for long enough that it has created a sort of impenetrable feedback loop
    yes, I think that is so.
    it’s arrived at a very dangerous point. like, not quite Rwanda, but you can see it from here.
    the actual policies of the GOP or (as we now should call it) the Party of Trump not only do nothing to benefit the people we are talking about, they actively do them harm.
    in pragmatic terms, I think this is completely so. at least for people who aren’t, for example, business owners, but even for them I’m not sure (R) policies are always a win.
    what I think is that the folks in question don’t care.
    way back when Obamacare was being debated, I read an interview with a guy who had a family member who would basically either die or live an *extremely* reduced life without the ACA.
    the guy recognized that, and still opposed the ACA. because government shouldn’t be in the business of health insurance, full stop. even if it means his sister would die.
    so the pragmatic benefits seem to be less compelling than people’s understanding of what liberty means. for example.
    Americans are living in two separate nations.

  147. Why does she live in downtown Phoenix?
    She didn’t used to, but then downtown Phoenix expanded.
    She moved again recently to a property further away from downtown, and she’s happier now.
    When she and my brother-in-law first moved to AZ back in the late 70’s they landed in Payson, up in the mountains east of Phoenix. At the time it was back of beyond. They mostly loved it, except for the drug trafficking.
    They moved to Phoenix in the early 80’s for work and so my mother could help with childcare. In the early 80’s Phoenix was not what it is now.
    They’ve just kept moving every few years since then to get away from the latest iteration of “downtown”.

  148. what I think is that the folks in question don’t care.
    they care about beating the Democrats, because Fox tells them that’s the only way to MAGA. policy is only relevant in that the GOP has traditionally claimed a few positions as its own and so Fox viewers reflexively know which side to take. but, as Trump proved, even that can be set aside tactically, if doing to makes it possible to beat the Dems.
    you don’t go from a self-proclaimed party of heartland traditional family values and the rule of law to a party that idolizes a thrice-married, crooked NYC playboy real-estate huckster and c-list celebrity mail-order scammer who publicly fantasizes about his daughter in the span of a year unless all those values and positions were just a charade.
    but you can do it, easily, if your only real principle is that Dems Must Lose.

  149. if your only real principle is that Dems Must Lose.
    I don’t think that’s quite it. Their one principle is *I* Must Win. If they thought that it would improve their chances of winning, they would change parties in an instant. By now, for most of those in Congress, it wouldn’t — they’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole, and non-MAGA voters wouldn’t forget. Perhaps more to the point, non-MAGA donors wouldn’t trust them enough to pony up.

  150. They’ve just kept moving every few years since then to get away from the latest iteration of “downtown”.
    I’ve always considered Phoenix metro to be a big suburb of almost nothing as far as an actual city goes. It’s a matter of how dense your part of the big suburb is, and the density keeps increasing over time until it reaches the Phoenix maximum. The maximum then continues to spread further and further out into what once were less-dense suburbs, which in turn were once unpopulated (by humans – plenty of snakes, lizards, scorpions, coyotes, roadrunners, etc.) land.

  151. wj,
    You seem to be talking about politicians while cleek seems to be talking about ordinary-yokel MAGAts.
    You may be right about the politicians: if Covid killed off all MAGAts tomorrow, GOP politicians would switch parties the day after. If you think they’re cynical charlatans to that extent, I am not inclined to argue with you.
    But stop fooling yourself about what “I must win” means in practice. Elections are a zero-sum game, for one thing. For another, the GOP hasn’t sought “win-win” solutions since last millennium, I think.
    –TP

  152. For another, the GOP hasn’t sought “win-win” solutions since last millennium, I think.
    Collectively, in Congress, I’d date the breakpoint to 1994 (when Gingrich became the Republican leader in the House).

  153. that’s the only way to MAGA
    what does America look like, when it’s “great again”?
    there are the true believer hard-core Nazis, who think it’s a country with no Jews or black or brown people. but I don’t actually think there are that many of them. Trump got 74+ million votes in 2020, I’m not seeing 74+ million actual Nazis.
    The folks who showed up on January 6 seem to have been a reasonable cross section of middle- to upper-middle-class America, especially white America. Whatever it is they want, they want it bad enough to riot and invade the US Capitol in order to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power following an election.
    That’s a big freaking deal. It is, in fact, unprecedented in the nation’s history, and the nation’s history includes a very wide variety of things, good bad and indifferent.
    What does it mean, to them, for America to be “great again”?
    Maybe you guys are right and they all just really enjoy being some combination of terrified and pissed off. In which case, we’re kind of screwed and there is not much to be done except try to keep them from breaking every damned thing they can get their hands on.
    In the run-up the Civil War, the issue was really, really clear. Preserve and expand slavery, or don’t.
    What is the analogous issue or set of issues now? Is there one? Or is it all about crazy crap like lizard people and ‘election fraud’?
    What the hell do these people actually *want*? They say stuff like “they want their country back” – what does that mean? Do they even know?

  154. there are the true believer hard-core Nazis, who think it’s a country with no Jews or black or brown people. but I don’t actually think there are that many of them.
    Get rid of all those Jews and black and brown people? No, I agree there aren’t a lot of folks who would agree that they want that. But have those people “know their place”? I think that’s a lot closer:

    • Basically white government. A few women, mostly succeeding their deceased husbands in the legislature.
      And maybe 2-3% of government officials who are part of those groups, as long as they are tokens and not in positions of real power.
    • No signs and government documents in languages other than English. (No, probably, TV shows in other languages either. A few radio stations might be OK, since they can ignore those.)
    • No religions other than their own (and maybe the occasional Catholic) prominent.
    • No homosexuals visible (outside, perhaps, a few hidden in a few big city ghettos). And no non-traditional families.
    • Nobody suggesting any of those things should change either.

    Think of the 1950s — as portrayed on TV, not the reality.

  157. Think of the 1950s — as portrayed on TV, not the reality.
    it’s almost 2022. most of the people we’re talking about weren’t even alive in the 50’s. or if they were, they were barely school age.
    not disagreeing with you, just having a hard time making sense of it.

  158. A friend of mine from my Colorado days recently posted an indiegogo link on his FB page from Gary Gygax’s son and his business partner who are looking for backers to get them cashed up to take a run at Wizards of the Coast (owners of the copyright for Dungeons & Dragons) demanding that Wizards stop “bullying” and “slandering” TSR (owners of the trademark for the old publisher of Dungeons & Dragons).
    Because Wizards of the Coast publishes legacy content for the earlier editions of D&D that features a disclaimer:
    We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.
    So now a bunch of OG gamers are getting all knicker twisty because a) Wizards is featuring diverse representation in its artwork and stories and b) trying not to present any sentient race as being inherently evil and c) pointing out that the old material from gaming’s early days were meant to appeal to white male nerd power fantasies that have not aged well – either in mainstream society or in gaming subculture.
    What the snowflakes want is a) to be able to like the problematic things that they always liked without having to acknowledge any of the things about them that made them problematic and b) to continue to enjoy the sort of new cultural status that comes from being a tech nerd without having to make room for any of the new groups drawn to the subculture.
    Which is where we are with most everything on the right in the US. It’s people who bough the old meritocracy myths wanting their day in the sun, but also wanting all those myths to still be true. They want to be secret winners, newly acknowledged as cultural heroes while keeping all the old villains in place. Because they still believe that they deserve to win the old game and that the other losers don’t deserve it.

  159. Michael Flynn dixit.
    my first reaction to this was “yes, but he’s a grifting nutcase”.
    then I remembered the immortal words of PT Barnum said…

  161. A few radio stations might be OK, since they can ignore those.
    The equivalent of the numerous foreign-language weekly newspapers across much of the Great Plains and western prairies up through the 1920s. Swedish and Danish in NW Iowa and Serbian and Croatian in parts of SE Nebraska are two that I know of from living there are a kid.

  162. most of the people we’re talking about weren’t even alive in the 50’s. or if they were, they were barely school age.
    not disagreeing with you, just having a hard time making sense of it.
    Not arguing that they got their vision watching TV in the 1950s. Just that what they seem to want looks remarkably like what those 50s shows portrayed.

  163. what does America look like, when it’s “great again”?
    it looks like Jesus and flags and eagles and guns and freedom.

  165. I’d say the ‘people knowing their place’ mentioned above is the most succinct way to express it. And it has a double meaning:
    1) ‘them’ knowing their place below ‘us’
    2) us not being insecure because there are no fudamental changes, so we do not have to permanently adjust and can expect that simple plans will work longterm.
    That would include getting secure longterm jobs with living wages attached.
    For the #2 one could at least have sympathy and understanding. And one major problem is that #2 has become essentially impossible and those profitting from that have found successful ways to connect #1 and #2 in the minds of those suffering from it, i.e. blaming the insecurity on ‘them’ not ‘knowing their place anymore’.
    And this turns out to be enough with no need to have an actual Nazi majority.

  166. And Happy Days re-runs, apparently
    I admit to a certain amount of curiosity as to whether the target is Mississippi or Wisconsin.

  167. There were TV shows from the 50s, and there were TV shows about the 50s.
    Ozzie and Harriet ran from 1952 until 1966(!), overlapping The Honeymooners (55-59) which was in many ways its antithesis, and also the mildly subversive Dobie Gillis and the wickedly subversive Rocky and Bullwinkle, although both of those just make it into the 50s, with debuts in 59.
    Then there were TV shows purporting to be about the 50s. Leaving MASH aside, I suppose Happy Days most readily springs to mind.
    Now, how about The Andy Griffith Show? It ran 60-68, so it’s not from the 50s. But surely it was about the 50s — or a Bowdlerized version of the 50s anyway. In the small town of Mayberry, North Carolina(!) everybody went to (the same) church on Sunday, and nobody was black. Sure, Sheriff Taylor was a single parent — but a virtuous widower, not a divorced heathen. So I say the 50s were already being whitewashed when we boomers were at an impressionable age.
    Speaking of whitewashing, the Griffith spin-off Gomer Pyle, USMC ran 64-69 without a single reference to the Vietnam war, I think.
    I have harped before on the sociological inferences I draw from having seen all 3 versions of Miracle on 34th Street — the climactic courtroom scene in particular. In the original 1947 version of the movie, the lawyer wins by invoking the authority of the Post Office (“an official department of the United States government”), while by the 1994 remake the judge is swayed by seeing “In God We Trust” circled on a dollar bill. Movies are honed to appeal to the mass audience. The mass of Americans had faith in the federal government shortly after WW2; they had faith in “faith” by the time Newt Gingrich came on the scene — if Hollywood was any judge.
    Myths are addictive, mythmaking is profitable, and the MAGA myth will be with us until a better myth quashes it. Policy will always be orthogonal to that unfortunate fact.
    –TP

  168. the guy recognized that, and still opposed the ACA. because government shouldn’t be in the business of health insurance, full stop. even if it means his sister would die.
    I was at a small gathering and these subjects came up, with the conversation revolving around masks and guns.
    I said, at some point, that a significant portion of this country seems to have no concept whatsoever that citizenship in part involves taking care of each other.
    In response, one of my friends said that in the course of their work they are often in meetings and groups with people like some of those who have been described in this thread today. Really nice people in most contexts, but then you cross a line.
    This friend of mine is no shrinking violet, and apparently often frames a question to gun owners: if giving up your guns would bring back the children who died at Sandy Hook, and all the others who have died in school shootings in the US in the past few years — and let those children live out their lives like the rest of us — would you give up your guns?
    No one has ever said yes.
    Of course, if you are happy enough to sacrifice your own sister, I suppose there’s no surprise if you’re happy enough to sacrifice any number of innocent school children.
    The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of six-year-olds, apparently.
    Or, in the case of COVID, fellow citizens.
    I keep wondering: what about my life, liberty, and happiness?
    Rhetorical question, obviously.

  169. a significant portion of this country seems to have no concept whatsoever that citizenship in part involves taking care of each other.
    I’d be happy with not harming each other. or at least taking each other’s interests into consideration.
    I’m sure my counter-parties would say that wanting them to wear masks is me not taking their interests into consideration. Which leads to the question of how to weigh the relative merits of different people’s interests.
    And that turns into a pointless rabbit hole.
    What I think, to be perfectly candid, is that the phenomenon of Trump has crystallized a latent madness that’s basically always been out there.
    Trump could, in fact, stand in the middle of 5th Ave and randomly shoot people, and it would not in any way alter the opinion of the folks who support him. They just fucking love the guy. More than that, they adore and worship him.
    It’s perverse. The man is a flagrantly corrupt POS. I don’t understand it, and I’m not sure I want to. As far as I can tell, it’s a kind of mass mental illness, and I’m dead serious about that. History is full of exactly this kind of insanity, and it doesn’t end well.
    I’m interested in what these people actually want out of all of this madness. What is it that they hope to achieve. What does America look like when it’s “great again”, and why is that good. Hopefully there is something more there than just owning the libs, because that is a goal worthy of a misanthropic 7th grader.
    I’m not interested in their love and adoration of Donald fucking Trump, and I’m not interested in who they’re going to shoot if they don’t get their way. That’s where the conversation stops.
    And to be perfectly honest, the longer this bullshit goes on, the less open I am to any of it.
    There is a point beyond which there’s no more looking for common ground. Maybe we’re already there, I don’t know. But we’re getting close to it. I know that I am.

  170. wrs
    I have thought a lot about the mass mental illness framing, to no useful conclusion; and I’m more afraid about it every day.

  171. I’ve thought a lot about this, and one thing I keep coming back to is, homo sapiens is a failed species. The Genesis myth might have some kernel of truth to it, since we sure as hell act like an exotic/invasive species, wrecking havoc with every single ecosystem we encounter.
    The only metric we shine at is spreading uncontrolled over the planet. We destroy everything in our path – animal, vegetable, and mineral; not to mention our own kind, by the millions. We leave piles of trash everywhere. We poison the land and air, sea and sky.
    We are destroying the biome that allows us to live at all, much less live comfortably.
    And while there are people who do their best in ways great and small to reverse or at least ameliorate the damage we do, the vast vast VAST majority of the species doesn’t give s shit.
    So what I think is happening is, the richest people in the world (Murdochs, Putins, Mercers, Kochs, et al.) know that. They know we’re heading toward an era of real, honest-to-goodness scarcity of the really important stuff, like drinkable water. Food that isn’t grown in a vat. Stuff like that.
    And their response is to make sure they and their families (and that’s it) have everything they need to survive the next two hundred years. They need unspeakable wealth to build unbreachable refuges which are supplied with abundant, usable resources.
    And they need less competition. They need there to be a lot fewer humans than are around now. Or at least, a lot fewer humans who are in any shape to challenge the Oligarch Oases.
    Destroy consensual government? Check. Destroy the regulatory Administrative State? Check. Turn people against each other as a game now, so we’re primed to go to war for real when food and water are on the line? Check.
    Bring back the ways humans have used for our entire existence to separate us into warring camps: Race/ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Those hatreds are ancient and vicious and it doesn’t take much to turn them into pogroms and holocausts.
    It’s not just the US that has fallen down this rabbit hole. The UK, Australia, Hungary, and practically the entire Mid-East are locked, loaded and ready to party.
    Trumpists want everyone who isn’t like them dead, or at least marginalized.
    The oligarchs in our midst want everyone who isn’t them dead, or at least powerless.
    Works out nicely. For them.

  172. I have thought a lot about the mass mental illness framing
    In one of the posts I wrote about Korea, I mentioned a theory a long time German teacher posited that I tend to agree with, that the country has a collective case of PTSD. I think that the States (and the UK) have a serious case of patriarchy overdrive, where ‘masculine’ qualities of always winning, never admitting error, valorizing a ‘no fear’ attitude. It is no big surprise that the Jordan retrospective ‘Last Dance’ was so popular. I don’t want to deny Jordan’s gifts, but the man seemed to be a bully who couldn’t stand to let others take any credit. That he gets valorized tells a lot about the culture.

  173. they need less competition. They need there to be a lot fewer humans than are around now. Or at least, a lot fewer humans who are in any shape to challenge the Oligarch Oases.
    One has to wonder if they have considered the probable impact later of all that high power artillery they are spreading around now. Their “unbreachable refuges” may turn out to be nothing like.

  174. Always worth re-reading Umberto Eco on ur-fascism:
    https://italianacademy.columbia.edu/umberto-eco-fascism-new-york-review-books
    13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
    Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. One of the first sentences uttered by Mussolini in the Italian parliament was “I could have transformed this deaf and gloomy place into a bivouac for my maniples”—“maniples” being a subdivision of the traditional Roman legion. As a matter of fact, he immediately found better housing for his maniples, but a little later he liquidated the parliament. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

  175. Get rid of all those Jews and black and brown people? No, I agree there aren’t a lot of folks who would agree that they want that. But have those people “know their place”? I think that’s a lot closer
    Indeed, that’s what it’s all about and not only in the US:
    UK citizenship law is fundamentally exclusionary and racist and the latest proposed amendment is designed to facilitate the process of exclusion even further:
    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/12/exclusive-british-citizenship-of-six-million-people-could-be-jeopardised-by-home-office-plans
    “It’s a profoundly racist law,” Frances Webber, vice-chair of the Institute for Race Relations, told the New Statesman.
    “If you’re born here and you don’t have any foreign citizenship, you can do whatever you like. You might go to prison, but you will always have your citizenship.
    “If you don’t have citizenship, what other rights do you have? As Hannah Arendt said, citizenship is the very right to have rights.”

  176. one thing I keep coming back to is, homo sapiens is a failed species
    i get to a similar place. but mine is more like: humans have created a world that amplifies their own flaws because they don’t truly recognize those flaws.
    the internet, for example, is a great tool that also lets humans’ apathy towards untruth run rampant. we’re not interested in truth, we just want to be told what we would like to be the truth so we can pat ourselves on the back and get back to our nose picking.

  177. No one has ever said yes.
    I’m still in shock from this. But why? It should have been obvious before, but never in such stark terms.
    I suppose they might comfort themselves with the old lawyers’ favourite “Hard cases make bad law”.

  178. I’m very concerned with all the monkeying around that’s going on with our election process at the local level. If they can’t cut off democracy’s head, they’ll cut off its feet. And too many people appear as though they’ll go along with the whole thing if it means their party wins. I don’t think they understand the conflict that will follow and how unpleasant it will be for everyone, including them.

  179. On another tangentially related topic, there’s this. Concluding paragraph below.
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/09/trump-net-worth-billion-dollar-investment-media-company-523970

    In the coming months, as Truth Social goes live and users download the app, we’ll quickly find out if Trump is worth the $1 billion bet investors have placed on him, or if the Trump aura is actually a mirage as TMTG collapses into lawsuits, acrimony and financial penalties extracted by the federal government in Trump University fashion. Either way, you can be assured that Trump will come out of it with a handful of cash. He always seems to.

    I guess he’s a good businessman in some sense, although it’s a perverted use of “good.” What was that about PT Barnum?

  180. What hsh said (at 10:09).
    It seems to me that the non-MAGA population needs a) encouragement to resist this attack at the roots, and b) critically, guidance to the target of those attacks, and how to resist them. Does it need showing up at particular meetings? Volunteering to run for a position, so the MAGAtes are not running unopposed? Etc. (A couple bullet points on why each target matters might be a good idea as well.)
    I’d bet the otherside has a playbook in hand for their planned subversion. Our side needs one, too. And a big effort to distribute it widely.

  181. I guess he’s a good businessman in some sense,
    A skilled con man (which Trump is) can bring in money. But a good businessman has to do something more with that money than funding further grifting and feeding his own ego. Which is where Trump is an epic loser. I mean, how incompetent a businessman do you have to be to achieve bankruptcy when running a casino.

  182. to hsh’s 10:09 – I can recommend Common Cause and the League of Women Voters as two organizations that are focused on voting rights in pragmatic terms, and often with a local focus.’
    so if anyone is interested in getting hands-on with this stuff, they are two possible organizations to partner with or even join.

  183. so if anyone is interested in getting hands-on with this stuff, they are two possible organizations to partner with or even join.
    Thank you!

  184. As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise sharply in Missouri, local health departments are abandoning efforts to stop the spread of the pandemic disease, saying their hands have been tied by the state’s attorney general and a recent court ruling.
    One local agency, the Laclede County Health Department, northeast of Springfield, announced that it has ceased all COVID-19-related work, including case investigations, contact tracing, quarantine orders, and public announcements of current cases and deaths.

    the anti-science party is hard at work.

  185. I get that the unthinkable is difficult to think about, but traditional methods of resistance are many steps behind the conservative movement’s radical and utterly intolerable impositions on America.
    They’ve told us for 40 years their goals and effing methods. They bound ahead to the letter of those aims daily. They are heavily armed.
    The League of Women Voters and Common cause are just so many lesbian, baby-killing, communist, n-word lovers to the fascist vanguard of the already violent subhuman Republican Party.
    Fake Christian Pence is refusing to cooperate in the legislative investigations of the 1/6 plot to murder him and his wife at the Capitol.
    Covid-19 conservative terrorist bombers are committing suicide in their efforts to spread the deadly contagion. Health department officials in subhuman red states can’t stay in their own homes and offices for fear of being murdered by Republican operatives.
    The plot to steal the 2024 Presidential election is well underway and gaining steam. Even Democratic and liberal hand waving over that dread prospect is half-hearted and pointless.
    We are suffering a mass psychosis of sociopathic bullshit by tens of millions of so-called Americans, daily whipped into flames by the fascist bellows of the propaganda organs of the vermin Republican Party and its ultra-rich bankrollers.
    Worse, we, all of us, because we are decent people, are suffering a vast failure of imagination regarding the already envisioned endgame of the ruthless, racist, gutter-fascist conservative movement.
    Like this lady and her husband we don’t know what we are up against:
    https://www.newyorker.com/
    Putin will champion Trump and the Republican Party.
    Plus, according to them, God is on their side, a sure sign of approaching genocide.

  187. Time for some biowarfare. Send emergency cases that exceed hospital capacity right to the offices of these guys in sufficient numbers so they manage to saturate the air quicker than they can get kicked out. Bombard them with physical mail that has been handled by guys working on the Covid station before they decontaminate themselves at the end of shift. And do a good mix of variants to overpower and circumwent their antibodies (for these serial killers by proxy were highly likely among the first to get vaccinated). “Hustet ihnen was!” (lit: cough them something) as we say over here. Let them be breathed on everytime they set foot outdoors and sneeze on their cars. And – since that is far more effective than talking – sing them a serenade at every opportunity (“Aer-o-sole-mio!”).
    I do not endorse (yet) to Rittenhouse them the moment they complain.
    In case of success put them at the end of the line at the hospital and offer them as much ‘miracle cure’ as they want with the promise that for each dose they take (before witnesses) they will get moved one position up the line. Should they pass out before reaching the head of the line, tell teir escorts/attenders that this is the wrong place to seek treatement for drug poisoning and give them an address as far away as possible (the guys there should be prepared to send them off to yet another distant place and so forth until the digestive rear exits either recover by themselves or die).

  188. The League of Women Voters and Common cause are just so many lesbian, baby-killing, communist, n-word lovers to the fascist vanguard of the already violent subhuman Republican Party.
    True enough. It’s possible that things are too far gone for namby-pamby rule of law efforts.
    That probably is so in some places.
    But the reality is, I’m just not that interested in shooting people. That’s their game, not mine.
    I’m not sure where that leaves People Like Me if Trumpsters decide to go all Rwanda on the rest of us. Maybe I’ll change my mind. It depends.
    In the meantime, I’ll use what’s available, short of killing people.
    I do expect 2022 and, especially, 2024, to be hinge moments in all of this.
    Damn the (R) party for their cowardice and their cynical, gutless capitulation to the absolute basest impulses in our national character. They’ve devolved into a band of jackals.

  189. Damn the (R) party for their cowardice and their cynical, gutless capitulation to the absolute basest impulses in our national character. They’ve devolved into a band of jackals.
    Amen.

  193. You want a 50 states effort? Send your candidates and elected officials out to support labor organizing and to speak at a picket line. And keep pushing the current trend in labor away from bureaucratization and towards democratization (as just happened with the UAW).
    That shows fight and earns loyalty.
    And given the demographics of organizing in this moment, it will win solid support from millennials and younger voters who will remember this and keep showing up if this gives them any chance at security in their exceptionally contingent lives and futures.

  194. I feel like resistance is going to look like this
    . . .
    How that works for voter suppression, I’m not really sure, and it will probably be highly unorganized, but given the lack of technical sophistication of MAGA types, there are a lot of potential targets.
    I rather think the way it works is, in part, tech types hacking in and posting messages from (supposedly) Trump, calling on his followers to sit out elections. Rather than vote for some Republican who has been insufficiently loyal. Their actual loyalty being, of course, irrelevant — although links to fake reports of apostacy, better yet lese majeste, might by a nice touch.
    Given Trump’s typically sloppy phrasing, it could be “stay home altogether,” rather than just “don’t vote for X.” Thus helping down ballot races as well. Even gerrymandering isn’t proof against massive, petulant, “hold my breath until I turn blue,” sulking.

  195. Whatever the terms are that THEY bring to this, and each iteration of their assault on this country has been accomplished on their rigid uncompromising terms, respond in kind ….. times 100.
    I can be 100 times more immovable than Clarence Thomas.
    Try me.

  196. Given the subject, I suspect The Atlantic would overlook my copying and posting their email of today about American democracy. In my opinion, their treatment of the current situation is really worthwhile:

    This is The Atlantic’s weekly email to subscribers. Today, we invited Barton Gellman, whose cover story “January 6 Was Practice” was published online this week, to share a few thoughts with readers.
    Our latest magazine issue explores the health of our democracy. The prognosis is in doubt, and we think we have an obligation to say so. As I report in my cover story “January 6 Was Practice,” we have today only one political party that is content to live within the constraints of constitutional democracy, only one that is willing to lose an election. The other is willing to win by subverting the institutions of democracy itself.
    Our editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, puts his finger on the journalistic dilemma that arises from this state of affairs:

    Stating plainly that one of America’s two major parties, the party putatively devoted to advancing the ideas and ideals of conservatism, has now fallen into autocratic disrepute is unnerving for a magazine committed to being, in the words of our founding manifesto, “of no party or clique.” … But avoiding partisan entanglement does not mean that we must turn away from the obvious. The leaders of the Republican Party—the soul-blighted Donald Trump and the satraps and lackeys who abet his nefarious behavior—are attempting to destroy the foundations of American democracy.

    My colleague George Packer begins his own essay in the magazine with the arresting declaration: “I’m trying to imagine the death of American democracy.” He sees this exercise as a civic duty. “Nothing has aided Donald Trump more than Americans’ failure of imagination,” he writes. “It’s essential to picture an unprecedented future so that what may seem impossible doesn’t become inevitable.”
    This failure of imagination has left Democrats with many divided priorities, of which the threat to democracy is just one. President Joe Biden, as George notes, “has spent far less of his political capital on saving democracy than on passing an infrastructure bill.”
    Since Donald Trump took command of the GOP, I have longed to read a richly reported story about what it is like to be a Republican of conscience in the party today. My colleague Tim Alberta delivers that story in style with a profile of Peter Meijer, a freshman member of Congress. Meijer, who speaks with Tim with unusual candor, thought he could help lead his party away from the poisonous lies of Trump and his acolytes. Chastened by a year of experience, he has come to see that mission as naive.
    – Barton Gellman

  198. Send your candidates and elected officials out to support labor organizing and to speak at a picket line.
    12% of workers are unionized in the US, and that number is falling.
    maybe pick a bigger demographic?

  199. maybe pick a bigger demographic?
    Who says that this should be the only thing?
    Plus, strong words and actions there may well get more attention (beyond that) than the generic stump speech.
    The first order of business would be (re)gaining trust anyway.

  200. Just wandered by to ask if any of our cancel culture warriors (I’m lookin’ at you, Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan) have written letters of outrage to the New York Times about this.
    No, you say? I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

  201. 12% of workers are unionized in the US, and that number is falling.
    Support for unions is on the rise, though < https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/29/support-of-labor-unions-is-at-65percentheres-whats-behind-the-rise.html >, and it is strongest among the young. And unions crosscut all the demographic fault lines.
    I’ve been in a union of one sort or another for 20 years (and not a labor activist type either, I’m a union pragmatist.) Things looked bleak after Janus, but the pandemic has really created awareness of how exploited essential workers are and that awareness is spreading, as is the sense of inequity and what is at stake.
    Our union has grown since the last contract victory as our non-members that we represent see what collective action can do for them, and there is more resolve now than there was 20 years ago. This is an opportunity lying there for the Democrats that the GOP will never embrace. It’s a clear value distinction that puts the Dems back on the side of the working class.
    So it doesn’t matter that it is a small demographic. It matters that it is a strategically important demographic. The Dems will probably piss this moment away like most others as they chase big donors, but I have a sliver of hope still that someone will notice the union support that energized Sanders’ campaign and start to build on that at the grassroots level in all the places where Dems have been invisible for decades.

  202. I’m lookin’ at you, Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan
    Both have argued against banning the teaching of CRT and books on the subject.

  203. So it doesn’t matter that it is a small demographic. It matters that it is a strategically important demographic.
    I’m not quite following why this is a strategically important demographic. At least until it has grown substantially.
    And, even more, why you think it will be significant in the extremely short run — which is what is critical at this point.

  205. I’m not quite following why this is a strategically important demographic. At least until it has grown substantially.
    Because the demographic you are aiming to win over is not *union members,* it’s the people who wish they had a union, or the people who have family members that are in a union. It’s winning support from people who need to see a party helping ordinary working folks.
    How many people have a family member who is a nurse, or a service worker, or a warehouse worker who has been overworked, at-risk, and underpaid? Would having a candidate show up to support them make you like that candidate more?
    I mean, I’ve had great conversations with students on campus who came out to support us when we were about to strike who were there because they had parents in a service workers’ union, or who were nurses, or who were teachers. Many of those students’ parents who were teachers were teaching at charter schools that did not have unions, and the students were there to help us because our success would have a knock-on effect for their parents.
    It costs next to nothing for a candidate to show up and publicly support workers, especially when the people on the other side are seen as cold-hearted profiteers. It gives the candidate a chance to be down-to-earth and to make the moment be about community and values and not just a stump speech.
    And because, absent labor, the Dems really have no connection to small towns and the places that have been bleeding jobs for years.

  206. So what demographic would you advise going after in the “extremely short run”, wj?
    To use an obnoxious, but handy, label: soccer moms.
    Go after suburbanites. They vote.** They may have voted Republican in the past, but they are persuadable. Talk about childcare for their children (or grandchildren), so they (or their children) can get back to work if they want. Talk about health care, especially for their 20-something kids, whose jobs don’t come with benefits like that. Talk about controlling guns, so their kids don’t have to do “active shooter” drills at school. Talk about the “kitchen table” issues that they care about.
    Also, start touting the individual (very popular) bits of the bills being passed. Forget global slogans like “Build Back Better.” Get down to the nitty-gritty, where things are easy to understand in bite-sized chunks.
    There’s plenty there. Unions, for most of them, are at most a “nice to have”; nowhere near as salient as the above. If you have time to spend an hour with a handful of people, yeah you might convince them. But it just isn’t the volume you need.
    ** In particular, they vote in districts which were gerrymandered on the assumption that they are a pretty safe constituency for Republicans. Which, IMHO, they ain’t.

  207. Everything you are talking about there, wj, is a talking point in a stump speech, and it’s a stump speech that the other side is also making.
    Showing up at a picket line or asking a rich capitalist why they are not offering better benefits to their workers who are striking? Not a stump speech. Not about the politician. It’s about the workers. It’s for the workers. It doesn’t require any trust. All it requires is showing up.

  208. Talk about childcare for their children (or grandchildren), so they (or their children) can get back to work if they want.
    Just don’t tell them how much it’s going to cost them.
    “Child care is already a major expense for parents, and President Biden pledges to reduce its cost with his multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better bill. Yet while some of those who receive government subsidies may see reduced costs, millions of other working parents could see their child-care costs double. The new program would act like a $20,000 to $30,000 annual tax on middle-income families.”
    Biden Would Make Daycare Even More Expensive: The Build Back Better bill would act like a $20,000 to $30,000 annual tax on middle-income families.

  209. Just don’t tell them how much it’s going to cost them.
    Get real, Charles. They know full well what it costs. Either they have been paying it, or they know they can’t afford it because they’ve checked it out. (And if you think the cost would shoot up that much, try finding a reputable source to support you. The days when the Wall Street Journal qualified are, sadly, behind us.)

  210. wj: Talk about childcare … Talk about health care … Talk about controlling guns … Talk about the “kitchen table” issues that they care about.
    To paraphrase Mark Twain(?), “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”
    I confess to often having been annoyed by good, well-intentioned Democrats on the stump using the phrase “I’m talking about [such and so]” as if that alone amounted to an incentive to vote for them. So, contra wj, my advice to Democrats would be to say:
    “Republicans are out to make your life miserable by stopping US from helping YOU afford child care or health care or college or retirement. They’ll tell you that as long as your neighbor’s daughter can’t get an abortion but your neighbor’s son can have all the guns he wants, you’ll be fine. You don’t need more money, the Republicans will tell you, only billionaires do. Billionaires need yachts and mansions and trips to space more than YOU need a break, see? If you buy that crap, go ahead and vote Republican.”
    Nous suggests practical, visible action. Aside from its symbolic value, showing up to support a union seems like a perfect opportunity to “talk about kitchen table issues”, no?
    –TP

  211. The days when the Wall Street Journal qualified are, sadly, behind us.
    That can be said of about all media. Not just the ones you don’t like.
    Another take.
    “And the poor design of some of these programs compounds the program. For example, in the subsidized child care program, each state would calculate a payment rate deemed to be equal to the “cost of child care” and providers may neither charge parents amounts in excess of their copay nor give them a discount or rebate. (In this respect, it’s quite different than the ACA for healthcare, where subsidies are based on the average “Silver” plan cost, and recipients can shop around for the price and coverage that suits them best.) Will the state calculate the cost “correctly,” or will they overshoot and give providers unintended profits, or will they be stingy in their calculation because of state cost-share requirements, putting providers out of business? In any event, the legislation requires that child care workers with credentials and education similar to elementary school teachers be paid equivalently, which will cause costs to explode — along with other determinations of “quality,” this could more than double costs not just for parents who don’t qualify for subsidies, but for the government, where every dollar spent on these subsidies is a dollar that can’t be spent on some other program of equal importance.”
    No, The ‘Build Back Better Bill’ Is Not Fully Paid For – But Do Americans Care?

  212. Republicans are out to make your life miserable by stopping US from helping YOU afford child care or health care or college or retirement.
    Tony, that’s what I said. I think there’s a benefit to also saying, “Whereas we have been taking concrete steps to get those things done.” As you say, “Everybody talks about the weather….” So if you have actually done something about it, you definitely need to say so. Loud and clear and repeatedly.
    Plus, that way you phrase it as “and they want to take those things away from you.” Taking stuff away never plays well. A few good quotes about abolishing Medicare, Social Security even, could pay dividends. And Charles’ heroes can doubtless be found explicitly saying exactly that.

  213. providers may neither charge parents amounts in excess of their copay nor give them a discount or rebate.
    Kind of runs counter to your previous “millions of other working parents could see their child-care costs double,” doesn’t it?

  214. Douthat sums up the ‘new right’:

    The younger American right isn’t like the conservatism of 20 years ago — it’s more reactionary and radical all at once, more pessimistic and possibly more dangerous. That’s the message of a pair of recent anthropologies of the youthful conservative intelligentsia: one by Sam Adler-Bell in The New Republic, based on interviews with various junior reactionaries, and one by my colleague David Brooks in The Atlantic, following his sojourn at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, Fla.
    …
    Suppose you made a list of what each tendency in American politics considers our biggest challenges right now. For the new right, the list might look something like this.
    Abroad, the double failure of our post-9/11 nation-building efforts and our open door to China, which requires either a recalibration to contain the Chinese regime or else a general pullback from an overextended empire.
    At home, the threat to liberty from Silicon Valley monopolies enforcing progressive orthodoxy and the threat to human happiness from the addictive nature of social media, online pornography and online life in general. The collapse of birthrates, the dissolution of institutional religion and the decline of bourgeois normalcy, manifest in the younger generation’s failure to mate, to marry, raise families. The post-1960s “great stagnation” in both living standards and technological innovation. The costs of cultural libertarianism, the increase in unhappiness and high rates of depression and addiction in a more individualistic society.

    sounds pretty fucking proto-fasc, to me.

  215. I may not agree with wj on specifics, but I’ll stand behind him on my own long time claim: “Win the suburbs, win the state.” Watching my own state over the last 30 years swing from solidly red to purple to now firmly blue — the national pundits don’t even grace us with the title ‘battleground’ in presidential elections any more — it was all about changes in many of the large suburbs.

  216. the legislation requires that child care workers with credentials and education similar to elementary school teachers be paid equivalently, which will cause costs to explode
    Cost will explode because child care workers with credentials and education similar to elementary school teachers are paid much less than those teachers.
    Maybe the WSJ is looking in the wrong place for the basic problem here.

  217. Imo, the younger the child the higher the necessary qualifications to properly handle them. But pay is usually structured the other way around. (not just in the US)

  218. Another take of how the democrats could/should approach demographics.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/12/can-germanys-new-leader-teach-democrats-stop-feuding/
    Money quote:

    Scholz’s success in building a heterogenous government is also a lesson to fractious Democrats. Progressive parties just about everywhere must win younger environmental and culturally liberal voters, but also parts of a more socially conservative working class and elements of a striving middle class as well.

    Not as elegant as a simplistic, single demograpgic, answer. But perhaps one which could succeed here as well.

  219. Imo, the younger the child the higher the necessary qualifications to properly handle them.
    So, are you saying that parents should have training/degrees in child development before they’re allowed to have children?

  220. I may not agree with wj on specifics, but I’ll stand behind him on my own long time claim: “Win the suburbs, win the state.” Watching my own state over the last 30 years swing from solidly red to purple to now firmly blue — the national pundits don’t even grace us with the title ‘battleground’ in presidential elections any more — it was all about changes in many of the large suburbs.
    And…
    Scholz’s success in building a heterogenous government is also a lesson to fractious Democrats. Progressive parties just about everywhere must win younger environmental and culturally liberal voters, but also parts of a more socially conservative working class and elements of a striving middle class as well.
    You’d have to bee a fool to disagree with either of these statements.
    The problem is with crafting a message that both cuts through and cuts across the disparate audiences.
    “The suburbs” are neither monolithic, nor consistent, nor free from contradictions in their desires. The Democrats did not win (enough of) the suburbs of the Front Range by crafting a magic appeal to the suburban voter.
    The Front Range got jobs that attracted a lot of socially moderate voters from California.
    This has never been a problem of identifying who you need to appeal to. The problem is, and has always been, what sort of appeal will work.
    The Democrats problem is not a problem of appeals to logos or to pathos. They have a deep problem with ethos. And ethos is very hard when dealing with diverse audiences. At some point you have to stop triangulating and pick a place to make a stand.
    Which is why while I understand the need to get the suburban vote in order to win, I don’t think that “get the suburban vote however one must” is a good strategy. There have to be messages that do not change around which the Dems can build an identity, and those messages have to crosscut rural and urban working class voters to build a sense of shared identity.
    The Dems have to stop being management and start being labor.

  221. So, are you saying that parents should have training/degrees in child development before they’re allowed to have children?
    And by this line of argument we also justify deregulating health care, because untrained parents have to care for sick children too, and have to decide what is best for the sick child, so vaccine mandates are also a totalitarian plot against parental sovereignty.
    If that’s the world in which you want to live, then bless your heart.

  222. So, are you saying that parents should have training/degrees in child development before they’re allowed to have children?
    Let’s say, it would avoid a lot of problems. That’s one reason most reasonable parents seek advice from people with prior experience.
    Of course and unfortunately the market for guidebooks on that topic gets flooded with semisolid digestive final product that can (and does) cause more damage and harm than even pure trial and error parents.

  223. So, are you saying that parents should have training/degrees in child development before they’re allowed to have children?
    I recall being handed my newborn son and thinking “who, me, where’s the manual?”
    However, he has survived my parenting efforts.

  224. “The suburbs” are neither monolithic, nor consistent, nor free from contradictions in their desires. The Democrats did not win (enough of) the suburbs of the Front Range by crafting a magic appeal to the suburban voter.
    Absolutely. When the Gang of Four decided to flip Colorado starting after the 2004 election, they first decided the goal was elect Democrats and then negotiate issues with them. Then they became masters of targeting (their big data approach would be copied by the Obama organization). Eg, Democrats in districts where the Republican was weak on the environment got environment messaging. Where education was the appropriate message, they hammered it. Notoriously, they completely ignored the national party.
    Absolutely agree about the California Diaspora. Western state Republicans continue to be blindsided by that. OTOH, these days I admit that I have no idea what the local Democrats’ winning messages are in the Midwest and South.

  225. I recall being handed my newborn son and thinking “who, me, where’s the manual?”… However, he has survived my parenting efforts.
    Didn’t hit me until we got home with him crying, and not a nurse in sight…
    Both the son and daughter seem to have turned out pretty well. Wife’s sliding downhill into dementia, though, so I’m not giving me a passing grade yet.

  226. Absolutely agree about the California Diaspora. Western state Republicans continue to be blindsided by that.
    One has to wonder if Texas Republicans will come to rue their triumphant comments about high tech industry coming from California to Texas.

  227. As far as I can see, Michael Cain, you have better than a passing grade already. There is no manual for what you are going through, unfortunately. All one can do is offer heartfelt fellow-feeling.

  230. At some point you have to stop triangulating and pick a place to make a stand.
    This x 1 with lots of zeroes after it. Just f**king be something!

  232. it’s a little bit funny… other than this place, i’ve been away from most of the really hardcore political blogs for a while now. and being at some distance from places like LGM, it seems like people who are really interested in the question of “are progressives to blame” are progressives. my leftier FB friends can’t stop talking about it. i see references to it from the leftier columnists on WaPo and NYT. leftier commenters at general-interest sites can’t stop bringing it up.
    this alleged schism is apparently very important to all of them.
    but mainstream Democrats? they don’t even know what you’re talking about.

  233. Moderate Democrat is not the same thing as mainstream Democrat. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a mainstream Democrat. That’s part of why I keep trying to push for something approximating an identity.
    That aside, though, the people who are blaming the progressives are the people who are in charge of Democratic election strategy, which means that we can expect more of the same from the next set of elections because – as you point out, cleek – they are stuck in a narrative that doesn’t match the view from the ground.

  234. the people who are blaming the progressives are the people who are in charge of Democratic election strategy
    And the people who are convinced that failure to do as progressives want is what is hurting the Democrats at the ballot box are, uniformly, progressives. One can understand that they think their ideas are great; that, after all, is why they support them. But somehow the amount of evidence they supply in support of that position is pretty limited. Certainly no more than the evidence that moderate Democrats can supply for why appealing to non-progressives is the way to win elections.
    That doesn’t prove that you are wrong, of course. But it does suggest that you might have more luck carrying the argument if you could present examples of progressives winning where moderates had failed to do so.

  235. That’s part of why I keep trying to push for something approximating an identity.
    i’d rather let people define themselves.
    as you point out, cleek – they are stuck in a narrative that doesn’t match the view from the ground.
    perhaps your view isn’t quite grounded?

  236. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/opinion/democrats-election-results.html
    You aren’t paying attention at all if you think only progressives are talking about how progressives are to blame.
    IMO, there is some blame to go around. Moderates have spent decades portraying progressive ideas as crazy on both political and policy grounds— it has its effect. Progressives sometimes go in for slogans that only appeal to the already convinced. Both factions have their own version of purity politics— some centrists make a fetish of their centrism.

  237. You aren’t paying attention at all if you think only progressives are talking about how progressives are to blame.
    i should have qualified: still talking about how progressives are to blame.
    after the election, fingers pointed everywhere.
    now that we’re a bit removed from the hyperbolic post-election blamecasting, most people have moved on.

  238. Certainly no more than the evidence that moderate Democrats can supply for why appealing to non-progressives is the way to win elections.
    No less, either, given the history discussed at lj’s links. Which makes me wonder whether leaning more progressive during midterms and more moderate during presidential elections is the way to go. That probably goes against “stop triangulating,” though. Or definitely does, because it might be the most triangulatingy thing ever.

  243. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a38506914/republicans-block-insulin-build-back-better/
    My father and my sister died horribly from diabetes. A former sister-in-law is far along in her suffering from childhood diabetes as well.
    Death cults in other countries are butchered and slaughtered by American military armaments I fucking pay for.
    Why can’t we turn those weapons on the 80 million strong murderous domestic death cult within our borders?

  245. i’d rather let people define themselves.
    Misses or ignores the point I’ve been trying to make, which is about the collective ethos of the Democratic Party i.e. the DNC, and specifically the way that the DNC bunkers every time they underperform.
    Michael Cain’s description of how the campaigns are run in CO neatly summarizes the approach. It’s assessment driven and relies on getting targeted messaging to particular audiences that is meant to show the audience that the Democrats have been doing things that the audience should approve of.
    It’s a top down, content delivery model. That content favors the more centrist power structure of the DNC, yes, but that isn’t what I’m most concerned with. Bringing more progressives, and more progressive messaging, into that loop would not IMO help the situation because the problem is not the message, it’s the approach.
    Not enough grass roots. Not deep enough roots in enough places. Too modular an approach to messaging.
    What they need is not better targeting or better messaging. What they need is to find ways to put more of the diverse groups under the Democratic umbrella in meaningful contact with each other and pay attention to the concerns and connections that grow out of that.
    Permaculture, not cash crops. That 50 states thing that keeps getting talked about, but mostly ignored by the DNC and the media in their endless feedback loop.
    The D problem is not left right, it’s top bottom.
    Which is why I say that they need to get out in support of labor. The DNC is too much of a management silo.

  246. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to break out the drug-price-negotiation-for-Medicare part of the BBB bill into a separate bill. That avoids any arguments about whether it is appropriate for a reconciliation bill. And it would force Republicans (and, especially, Sinema) to vote explicitly on that. A bunch (maybe as many as a dozen in the Senate) would probably cave. And it would be an awesome plank to run on.

  247. The D problem is not left right, it’s top bottom.
    no argument there.
    but Dems in general don’t do top-down messaging (sending or receiving) very well.

  248. GftNC, Thanks for the Silverman article.
    I think the biggest mystery around Jan 6 is: Why didn’t Trump try invoking the Insurrection Act? The fact that it doesn’t actually cover what was going on (well, except for what his own followers were doing) surely wouldn’t have mattered to him.
    My guess would be that some part of Trump’s cabal spoke to the Joint Chiefs, perhaps to tell them to get the troops ready to go. And got told bluntly that they would uphold their oaths to defend the Constitution. The one thing Trump would hate/fear more than losing office would be to publicly give an order and have it rejected. That would make him look weak; even worse than looking like a loser.
    But that’s the thing about grass roots efforts to subvert the elections infrastructure. They are a lot less likely to set off the military in opposition. That is, there’s no illegal order to reject.

  249. and of course, we should all accept that it really doesn’t matter what the Dems say or do, because the GOP is going to make up some ridiculous new lie about what Dems really want (which the press will accept as a serious and sober policy argument), leaving Dems trying to explain why they don’t really support killing puppies for sport right up until the day after election at which point the press will say “hey wait, maybe that’s not entirely true, have a Pinnochio”.

  250. Finally, something to alienate Trump’s evangelical base.
    Money quote:

    “F–k him,” Trump was quoted as saying of Netanyahu. “The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with.”
    In the interviews, Trump also said Netanyahu never seemed genuinely interested in seeking peace with the Palestinians. Conversely, the former president heaped praise on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

    Rampant immorality? Not a problem. But trash an Israeli leader, especially a reactionary one? Praise a Palestinian leader? Anathema!
    Thank heavens for Trump’s knack for shooting himself in the foot.

  251. Of course the GOP stokes fears. They are aiming for an amygdala hijack. It’s really hard to break that sort of cycle.
    But there are things that can be done.
    https://acmelab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/ejsp.2315.pdf
    In the first inaugural address of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1938), given amidst the widespread disquiet of the Great Depression, the president famously warned Americans that their fear could serve as a psychological impediment to much needed social change. Decades later, research bears out Roosevelt’s supposition: Across several disciplines and
    methodologies, research consistently demonstrates an association between threat, broadly defined, and political conservatism. Such work has shown that: (i) political conservatives are, on average, more likely to
    perceive threat than their liberal counterparts; and (ii) the existence of threat, in myriad forms, is associated with increased endorsement of conservative attitudes that resist efforts toward social change (for reviews, see Hibbing, Smith, & Alford, 2014; Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2013; Jost, Gaucher, & Stern, 2015). Here, we test the novel hypothesis that the opposite of threat—that is, heightened feelings of safety—will
    increase socially progressive beliefs, especially among conservatives. Specifically, we test the prediction that experimentally inducing feelings of safety will increase
    social liberalism among Republicans (Study 1) and acceptance of social change among conservatives (Study 2).
    I saw this a lot in the lead up to my union’s strike authorization vote. Members get very scared at the thought of retaliation, but reminders of the job protections built into labor laws helps tip them over into acting against that fear based power.
    Obama, I believe, really did win on Hope and Change as a foundational idea, but it takes a lot of ground organizing to turn that idea into action because the people who need to be won over are the ones who perceive themselves to be most at-risk. They need people like them showing them how to move past that fear to take action. The D ground game sucks on this. That’s why they need to learn from local community groups to build stronger local support networks.

  252. The D ground game sucks on this. That’s why they need to learn from local community groups to build stronger local support networks.
    We may disagree on how best to do this. But totally agree that it needs to be done. Beyond Stacey Abrams’ work in Georgia.

  254. We may disagree on how best to do this. But totally agree that it needs to be done. Beyond Stacey Abrams’ work in Georgia.
    They could start by finding grassroots groups and actually listening to them. They could get those groups together and see what develops out of the contact and do their best to aid, rather than try to direct?

  256. They could start by finding grassroots groups and actually listening to them.
    At this point, the critical thing is to start. The time for dithering over the “best” approach is pretty much past, when it comes to the 2022 elections.

  257. Rampant immorality? Not a problem. But trash an Israeli leader, especially a reactionary one? Praise a Palestinian leader? Anathema!
    The question is, will those that are offended by that even hear about it? And, if so, will they believe it or just call it fake news?

  258. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/553234-dnc-announces-funding-agreement-with-state-parties

    The DNC said in a statement the four-year deal will provide $23 million to state parties as part of the national organization’s 2022 midterm strategy.
    The group will also create a “Red State Fund” to direct additional investments in historically red states as part of efforts to compete in every state and territory. That fund includes $2 million in direct investments and grants for states that have no Democratic senator or governor, where under 25 percent of the congressional delegation are Democrats and where a Republicans hold a supermajority in the state legislature.
    …
    The proposal was hailed by state Democratic parties that said the injection of funds would prove key to making gains in the midterms.
    “This historic agreement will give Democrats across North Carolina and the entire country the resources we need to continue delivering for the American people,” said North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Bobbie Richardson. “With more investment than ever before in our grassroots infrastructure, we are ready to get to work electing Democrats up and down the ballot in 2022, and beyond.”

    if you need a job

  259. The question is, will those that are offended by that even hear about it? And, if so, will they believe it or just call it fake news?
    Well, it was direct from Trump, so it is far more likely to make it into their information bubble. The Trump has spoken!

  260. From a reply of Silverman’s in the comments at GftNC’s Balloon Juice link:

    You assume the US military would actually respond. If, through extreme gerrymandering; passage of voter suppression laws; passage of laws giving state legislators the right to decide who the electors are, not the voters; passage of laws allowing state officials to take over local election boards and administration; and the actual takeover of local election boards and administration the GOP sets the conditions to steal the 2024 election it will all have been done in the open and through legal means according to state statutory and constitutional law and in line with the new conservative/GOP/Federalist Society reading of the US Constitution’s meaning regarding election administration being solely in the hands of state legislators. It will all have been done legally and constitutionally. So exactly what would allow or compel the military to respond? Trump would, according to the rules put in place beginning in 2021, the president. And if he ordered the military to not interfere that would be a lawful order.
    As comical as some of the players involved with this seem to be, this plan was constructed and is being implemented by people that actually understand how things work.

    I believe he meant 2025, not 2021, but otherwise, this is what I’m afraid of. As russell has noted many times, we don’t live in an actual democracy in the United States. How undemocratic of a republic we live in may be subject to change under current law and the US Constitution. If it gets too undemocratic, it may no longer even be a republic.

  261. any game that provides a way for players to change the rules will inevitably degrade into anarchy.
    as anyone who has ever played a college drinking game can attest.

  263. any game that provides a way for players to change the rules will inevitably degrade into anarchy.
    Pity there is no sign of the Senate degrading into anarchy. Seems like it would be a step forward.

  264. this might be interesting to some
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/11/21/do_progressives_pay_the_price_for_progressive_legislation_146761.html
    Of course, this gets to the point where, as the article notes,
    On Nov. 5, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) opined that even if passing a Build Back Better bill leads to a Republican takeover of the House, the Democrats should still approve it.
    I can see how the article can be spun both ways, progressives don’t realise how much progressive ideas damage moderate chances, vs moderates not considering the larger picture and perhaps not considering being reelected as the ne plus ultra.
    How things look on the other side of the aisle is here
    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/peter-meijer-freshman-republican-impeach/620844/

  265. To play the advocatus diaboli: was abolition worth the Civil War? Argue under these possible scenarios:
    a) slavery in the US (South only) would otherwise still exist to-day.
    b) slavery would have expanded to all states and territories and still be with us.
    c) slavery would have been abolished anyway but it would have taken 50/100/150 years without the Civil War.
    Closer to home: If abandoning the ACA (and all possible alternatives) had prevented Jabbabonk (or another GOPster as vile but more competent) from becoming POTUS, should the Dems have sacrificed their attempts at reform?

  266. On Nov. 5, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) opined that even if passing a Build Back Better bill leads to a Republican takeover of the House, the Democrats should still approve it.
    Which is likely to happen anyway, given redistricting and gerrymandering, even if nothing gets passed.
    And the Democrats are already labeled as socialists even when it was Obamaa, Clinton and Biden on top of things with agendas that match Europe’s center right agendas.
    If those things are givens, then it makes no sense to let fear of them happening shift your course of action. The blow is going to come. Stop trying to prevent it and start trying to figure out how to counter it.

  267. I can see how the article can be spun both ways, progressives don’t realise how much progressive ideas damage moderate chances, vs moderates not considering the larger picture and perhaps not considering being reelected as the ne plus ultra.
    I’d say that whether it’s worth passing stuff depends to an enormous degree on which bits of the progressive agenda are involved. In the case of BBB, big chunks of it are actually things Republicans would have done, were they (and Trump) not so massively incompetent. So most of it doesn’t really count, objectively, as “progressive” agenda. And while Republicans might run against the whole package, if they are forced to run against specific pieces thet will have a real problem.
    The other factor, for progressives, would be whether something being passed would then become impossible for conservatives to roll back. Obamacare cleared that threshold, if only barely. Some other things might also; others not so much.

  268. Hartmut, bearing in mind it is counterfactuals, I’d ask folks to consider if slavery actually ended with the Civil War. Certainly de jure slavery did, but did de facto slavery end? Except for a short lived period of reconstruction, it looks like a lot of things went back to the way they were. And while some African Americans were able to make progress, you also had the Tulsa race massacre as well as a relatively constant stream of lynchings across the South. This, coupled with the Lost Cause mythology, has me wondering about what ‘abolition’ really means.

  269. lj, it’s telling (in an ‘only in America’ way) that this argument is used by (some) slavery apologists to-day.
    [Slaves are property and property rights are sacred in the US. So, lynchings as a crime against property would be harshly dealt with. Ergo, slaves had far better protection than ‘free’ blacks. Ergo any reasonable* black person would have been against abolition.]
    *It goes without saying that the same people making this argument would deny that blacks (or women for that matter) are capable of reason.

  270. Oh I totally agree, which is why I flagged that point. To have the simple narrative that slavery disappeared with a flourish of a pen is part of the problem.

  272. Argue under these possible scenarios
    An additional scenario:
    The Confederacy and its slave economy and culture expands around the Caribbean basin and into Central and South America. Slavery persists, probably well into the 20th C.
    FWIW, Mississippi didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment until 1995.

  274. Edsall, NYT:

    An Aug. 3-Sept.7, CNN survey of 2,119 people demonstrates the differing ways Democrats and Republicans are responding to the emerging threats to democracy.
    Far higher percentages of Republicans, many of them preoccupied by racial and tribal anxiety, believe “American democracy is under attack” (75 percent agree, 22 percent disagree) than Democrats (46 percent agree, 48 percent disagree). Republicans are also somewhat more likely to believe (57-43) than Democrats (49-51) “that, in the next few years, some elected officials will successfully overturn the results of an election in the United States because their party did not win.”

    that’s interesting.

  276. ‘What is it you want permission to do?’
    I give them permission to fuck off and die, no matter what the “what” is.
    If they persist in demanding anything other than that, they’d better kill me.
    They are planning just that.

  277. Russell, that’s why I included ‘territories’ in scenario b). One of the great Southern dreams (pre-secession) was territorial expansion in that direction. And the North did not want that because it was not possible to counterbalance that by a Northern expansion. So the slave states would get a guaranteed and ever expanding majority, if allowed to go on Southern conquest.

  278. I think I misunderstood the “without the Civil War” part, and assumed that, civil war or no, the southern states would leave the US.
    I don’t think slavery would have expanded to the free states, ever. And I don’t think the nation would have continued as a mix of free and slave states, with or without a civil war.
    IMO there would have been a parting of the ways, and subsequently the slave states would have expanded their reach into the Caribbean and beyond – basically as far as they could.
    So on the whole, I’d say abolition was worth the Civil War, if only to prevent the expansion of the slave-based plantation economy of the American south.

  280. Needless to say, DeSantis’ proposed legislation will carefully avoid defining just what Critical Race Theory actually is. Lest anyone be limited in their ability to sue whenever they find something in the schools that they do not like. (Figure that, relatively soon, evolution will be taken by some to be part of CRT.)

  281. A related post from LGM.
    As a modest suggestion, I propose this rule:
    If you can’t explain what critical race theory is, you can’t ban it.
    Unfortunately, we are living in the puke funnel, so no such rule is operative.

  282. If you can’t explain what critical race theory is, you can’t ban it.
    Presumably you would require that the explanation be, at least vaguely, accurate. Because I’m sure they can manage some explanation which has minimal relationship to CRT. Without, quite, reaching flat out racism — or maybe it will.

  283. Apparently, CRT is anything that makes people feel “discomfort, guilt [or] anguish” due to their own race or sex.
    The quote is from the TN law against teaching CRT in schools.
    Who’s a snowflake now?

  285. If CRT is going to be taught, teach it in high school. Let kids be kids before loading them down with adult hangups. But it’s dumb to pass laws against teaching CRT or pretty much anything else. Better to attach school funding to the students and let them and their parents spend it at the schools they prefer. Fund education, not schools.

  286. Apparently, CRT is anything that makes people feel “discomfort, guilt [or] anguish” due to their own race or sex.
    Clearly not. It is anything that makes white people (especially but not exclusively male white people) feel “discomfort, guilt [or] anguish” due to their own race or sex. Others’ feelings of that nature? Not a problem. At least for those having hysterics over CRT.

  287. Better to attach school funding to the students and let them and their parents spend it at the schools they prefer. Fund education, not schools.
    And if the parents are opposed to, for example, educating girls at all? Or suppose they only want schools which warehouse their children thru age 18, with no requirement to teach any of them anything?
    Sorry, but the nation has a strong interest in an educated citizenry. An educated workforce.
    You can have government run schools. Or you can have an enormous government bureaucracy to assure that the plethora of private schools are actually teaching something useful — likely to the point of having inspectors in most classrooms most of the time. The former seems far less intrusive, not to mention far cheaper.

  288. About a half-dozen states have had some form of school choice for up to about two decades. There haven’t been any education disasters in any of them from parents and students having a choice.
    West Virginia recently went from the state with the least amount of school choice to the state with the most.
    “While West Virginia and Kentucky are now leading the way in school choice, the states have lagged behind most others for generations when it comes to metrics such as test scores. The National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) – known as the Nation’s Report Card – demonstrates this fact. In 2019, West Virginia fourth-graders ranked 49th in mathematics and 48th in reading, while Kentucky’s scores have been stagnant for a generation of students accompanied by a widening achievement gap. Education is about much more than standardized test scores, but those results were not likely to assuage parental concerns about the education their children were getting.”
    West Virginia and Kentucky Now Lead the Way in School Choice: Union strongholds and racked by the ‘Red for Ed’ movement in 2018 and 2019, West Virginia and Kentucky have since passed some of the broadest school choice legislation in the country’s history.
    West Virginia School Choice Roadmap

  289. Or suppose they only want schools which warehouse their children thru age 18, with no requirement to teach any of them anything?
    Insofar as “warehouse their children” means babysitting, that’s what we already have. And it’s a separable concept from the part about teaching kids anything, which is different from ensuring that kids learn anything.
    Most and probably all the states are like Maine, which has a requirement that children be in school from one age to another age, not a requirement that children show proficiency in a specified set of subjects before they’re allowed out.
    When I was homeschooling in Maine, kids were required by law to be in school from age 7 through ages 15+, with various permissions required for kids to drop out (e.g. judge and parents for 15, parents only for 16, no one at all for 17 — and don’t quote me on this, this is a blurry memory of how the system worked, only meant to illustrate the point).
    Whatever the states and school districts decide to try to teach, children are not required to learn it.
    As a side note, no one involved in education wants parents to realize that kids don’t actually *have* to go to school at age 5.
    So it occurs to me that public education is kind of like democracy: the worst possible system of education, except for all the others.
    (Cynical commentary aside, I support public education and agree that it’s an important core of a functioning demoncracy. Which in turn doesn’t necessarily entail the same things as educating willing assembly line workers….)

  290. Educated citizens make more productive workers, and consumers with an appetite for higher-value goods.
    OTOH, they might be dissatisfied at being in the “Moron Tribe”, so gotta stop that before it starts.

  291. If CRT is going to be taught, teach it in high school. Let kids be kids before loading them down with adult hangups.
    Actual CRT isn’t something that actually gets taught before college. It’s something that might get summarized and excerpted in a lower division intro class and actually read in an upper division class.
    What actually gets objected to in K-12 education is any account history that is informed by CRT – which is to say anything that talks about intersectionality or that mentions the idea of structural racism or that engages in any standpoint theory. That last one basically describes any text that centers on the experiences of BIPOC individuals and narratives of how they have been marginalized by society.
    Does presenting an account of the Tulsa Race Massacre from a BIPOC survivor count as CRT? At what age should such a thing feature in the education of an American student? How about the story of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing? Should 6th graders be taught about that and read any narratives from the time?
    Are Frederick Douglass’ books CRT books?

  294. What actually gets objected to in K-12 education is any account history that is informed by CRT – which is to say anything that talks about intersectionality or that mentions the idea of structural racism or that engages in any standpoint theory.
    Allow me to beg leave to doubt it. Those objecting loudly to CRT would generally not have the least idea what “intersectionality” means, assuming they have ever encountered the word, which they likely have not. Likewise they would have no clue what constitutes a “standpoint theory.” They won’t object to those for the simple reason that they have zero interaction with the words, never mind the concepts behind them.
    They can probably puzzle out some approximation of what “structural racism” means. But misunderstand it to be somehow an attack on them personally. Whereas, viewed dispassionately, it might well be taken as a reason for any racism they might appear to display. One which excuses them of any personal guilt for something which is, by definition, built into the structure.
    Nope, for those objecting, what they take CRT to mean is any suggestion that they take any responsibility, individually or collectively, for the flaws in our political, social, or economic system. Or even that there are such flaws . . . excepting the ones which impact them, and about which they complain.

  295. West Virginia and Kentucky are now leading the way in school choice
    I can’t create live links from my tablet for some reason, so I’ll just put the URL here. Cut n paste to see how WV and KY stack up as regards educational achievement.
    https://stacker.com/stories/950/most-and-least-educated-states-america
    Let kids be kids before loading them down with adult hangups.
    It’s unlikely that grade school kids are being taught critical race theory, just like they aren’t being taught postmodernist literary criticism or quantum physics.
    People don’t want their kids to hear anything that conflicts with their own biases and beliefs. Best of luck with that.

  296. Eh, so the link worked. Computers baffle me.
    I’m still trying to figure out how Frederick Douglass is a libertarian.

  297. I’m still trying to figure out how Frederick Douglass is a libertarian.
    Perhaps more of a classical liberal. Douglass is written about and referenced a lot in libertarian articles and books.
    On the day he died, he had attended a women’s rights meeting.

  298. On the day he died, he had attended a women’s rights meeting.
    One asks what David Koch was doing the day he died…

  299. West Virginia and Kentucky are now leading the way in school choice
    As seen in russell’s link, Kentucky falls below even Alabama. And West Virginia contrives to fall below even Mississippi to finish dead last. Truly an impressive demonstration of the merits of the libertarian approach.
    But perhaps you mean that dispair over their performance has led those two to try an extreme radical approach. Rather than, oh say, emulating the approach used in more successful states. After all, they needn’t be successful blue states; Utah and Montana are hardly hotbeds of flaming liberalism. And yet manage to do quite well in educating their kids.

  301. Allow me to beg leave to doubt it. Those objecting loudly to CRT would generally not have the least idea what “intersectionality” means, assuming they have ever encountered the word, which they likely have not. Likewise they would have no clue what constitutes a “standpoint theory.” They won’t object to those for the simple reason that they have zero interaction with the words, never mind the concepts behind them.
    They don’t have to understand those things or even know those terms. They will object because books written from those perspectives make people empathize with people of color and do nothing to soften the representation of white people.
    So CRT must be suppressed because it makes white people uncomfortable and makes the myth of American Exceptionalism look hollow and fake.

  302. they don’t know shit about fuck and don’t care to learn. they object because Fox News tells them to object.
    and as soon as Fox News stops telling them to object, they’ll forget all about it.

  303. As seen in russell’s link, Kentucky falls below even Alabama. And West Virginia contrives to fall below even Mississippi to finish dead last.
    I don’t know about the other western states in the top ten, but for #2 Colorado there’s a thing called “the Colorado Paradox” in the education literature. We don’t spend much on our schools. We’re only mediocre at getting the kids through high school and into college. But we’re very, very good at attracting college grads, especially people with advanced degrees, from elsewhere. If you will, we exploit a loophole in the measurement methodology.
    Some of it is the mountain resort effect. A long-standing joke says that if you eat at a high-class restaurant in Aspen or Vail, chances are your waitperson has a better degree than you do. But they decided to be a ski bum.
    Some of it’s under-the-radar industries. We have a higher percentage of the work force in high-end aerospace than any other state. For example, we build a lot of sensors for satellites and a substantial number of $400M satellites that you never hear about. The critical mounts and actuators on the back of the Webb telescope mirror segments were built and attached to the mirrors in Colorado.
    And not least, there’s a ton of national labs and federal agency offices here. Possibly the most diverse collection outside of the DC metro area.

  304. and as soon as Fox News stops telling them to object, they’ll forget all about it.
    Uranium One! (F*cker Carlson’s now just fine with Russia amassing troops on Ukraine’s border, for the record.)

  305. But we’re very, very good at attracting college grads, especially people with advanced degrees, from elsewhere.
    States like West Virginia likely do the opposite.

  306. Let kids be kids before loading them down with adult hangups.
    Yes! I’ve been organizing parents in my area to push for a ban on live-action, sex-education videos featuring fully nude actors engaged in un-simulated, penetrative intercourse being shown to our little 3rd graders. They really shouldn’t be showing those young children that kind of stuff!
    (And don’t even get me started on those criminal-justice classes with all the gory homicide photos I assume they’re showing to the kindergartners.)

  308. But we’re very, very good at attracting college grads, especially people with advanced degrees, from elsewhere.
    States like West Virginia likely do the opposite.
    Ah, but why? It’s not like Colorado’s population is awash in libertarians. At least, the educated portion.
    And western Colorado doesn’t (from afar) seem like it has much in natural advantages over West Virginia. More National Parks, perhaps, but beyond that…?

  309. And don’t even get me started on those criminal-justice classes with all the gory homicide photos I assume they’re showing to the kindergartners.
    But you gotta keep the parts on the 2nd Amendment and their Miranda rights. Just in case some kindergartner is the next school shooter. Can’t have them making admissions that might undercut their defense strategy.

  312. oh, come on.
    Some examples.
    (I apologize in advance for linking to a website that will trigger some of you…)
    “Police officers outside of Dayton, Ohio, unsheathed their weapons and fired blanks in Franklin High School on Tuesday as part of a misguided effort to prepare students for a possible active shooter.
    The planned drill unnecessarily ratcheted up the intensity of school lockdown procedures, which routinely require students and teachers to barricade themselves in their classrooms. That the exercise was potentially traumatizing was not lost on the officials who planned it, as they came equipped with “Social-Emotional Activities,” as well as counselors who could talk with any disturbed teens.
    “There was a concern and it did cause some stress” among parents and students, Lt. Gerry Massey tells the     Cincinnati Enquirer. Senior Samantha Earnhart, one such terrified student, said that she “became very emotional” and “started to cry” upon hearing the gunfire.
    And for what? Regardless of the feverish rhetoric around school shootings, the phenomenon remains exceedingly rare.
    Less rare, however, are these increasingly extreme active shooter drills.
    In August, police fired off blanks at a high school in Long Island, New York, in response to a pretend shooter who banged on classroom doors while students and teachers hid. Elementary school teachers in Indiana were recently shot execution-style with plastic pellets, causing many of them to bruise, and a Florida “Code Red” exercise last year was marketed to students as the real deal. “This is not a drill,” a school administrator announced over the intercom, sending some students into an emotional frenzy as they texted their parents goodbye.”
    Ohio Police Fired Blanks During School Shooter Drill, Needlessly Terrifying Students: Increasingly theatrical and frightening active shooter drills are surprisingly common, even though school shootings are not.

  313. What do you suggest as an alternative?
    Not to scare the crap out of kids over an event that is horrific but is extremely low risk for any given school.

  314. Not to scare the crap out of kids over an event that is horrific but is extremely low risk for any given school.
    Imagine a world where sick bastards shooting school kids wasn’t even a thing that needed considering.

  315. Not to scare the crap out of kids over an event that is horrific but is extremely low risk for any given school.
    You mean like the “duck and cover” drills us Baby Boomers grew up doing in school? To, supposedly. help protect us in the event of a nuclear attack — something which has a substantially lower probability than a school shooter. And for which the actions we were practicing were far less likely to be of any use at all.
    Somehow we generally seem, nonetheless, to have come thru childhood without massive damage. Unless you wish to contend that those drills produced the paranoia which today supports conspiracy theories among the elderly ….

  316. I open to the idea that active-shooter drills do more harm than good. I’m more than open to the idea that school shootings should be far rarer, possibly to the point of being non-existent, considering how rare they are in other countries. But we live in a nation awash in guns and with a perverse cultural adoration of them.

  317. And western Colorado doesn’t (from afar) seem like it has much in natural advantages over West Virginia. More National Parks, perhaps, but beyond that…?
    I’m not sure what the point is here. Colorado’s 120×40 mile Front Range urban corridor is where the vast majority of the college grads moving to the state end up. As for the ski bums (who also staff summer festivals), well, WV’s got nothing to compare to 3,000 feet of lift-served vertical drop.

  319. Good enough to attract someone with a new masters degree to move to WV for the bungee jumping? Big enough draw to provide jobs that person can work at to support their bungee-jumping habit?
    Colorado’s Western Slope ski resorts had the luck to become favorites of the rich and famous, and have relatively easy access to the (now) 4.5M Front Range population. Enough people that I-70 eastbound from the resorts to Denver late on Sunday afternoon is often a 60-mile-long parking lot. And owners who turned out to be smart enough to think, “We can do other things when it’s not skiing season.” Seven of the ten busiest days for the Eisenhower Tunnel that crosses under the Divide west of Denver have occurred in the summer.

  320. no, obviously not. just me sticking up for the underdog, in this particular situation.
    not a lot of bright young things heading for WV. not these days, and not ever, as far as I can tell.
    it’s like a company town, only it’s a state. and the official industry is a dying one.

  321. “There was a concern and it did cause some stress” among parents and students
    yeah, no shit? you mad about active shooter drills? shut up and get rid of the active shooters, then.
    next up at Reason: fire drills are slavery!

  322. it’s just so insane.
    everybody has to live with the possibility that some man is going to grab his fetish object, march into your building, and kill you. now, this doesn’t bother some people, but they are still living with that possibility – ignoring the odds doesn’t change them.
    but some people are bothered by it. and they plan for it. they make plans to save lives because the probability exists.
    and libertarians, because being visibly contrarian is the goal, complain that it upsets people. not that being shot upsets people, that planning to avoid being shot upsets people.

  323. it’s like a company town, only it’s a state. and the official industry is a dying one.
    But there’s no reason why it has to be. There’s cheap land for company facilities. And for housing. Nice scenery, too. As long as you’ve got decent schools for your kids, it should be quite able to attract new industries. Oh, wait. …
    Plus, I suppose, there’s the drawback (for some) that workers in those new industries might have rather different political and cultural views than the current residents. Is that enough to make people willing to stay poor? Well, it’s enough to get them to risk their lives, and the lives of those they love. So perhaps.

  324. I don’t remember any fire drills that involved setting fires, smoke machines, fire department responses, and not telling the students that it’s a drill.

  325. None of my 4 kids have ever has blanks shot in their schools. I don’t even know if they’ve had active-shooter drills of any kind.
    Charles, are you one of those people who reads about some dumbass thing some school somewhere did and then decides that it’s representative of what happens in schools everywhere on a regular basis? Or do you think those things are news because they’re unusual?

  326. “Senior Samantha Earnhart, one such terrified student, said that she “became very emotional” and “started to cry” upon hearing the gunfire.”
    Fuck her feelings.
    Conservatives and libertarians prefer the spontaneous, unrehearsed style of America school shootings. It enhances the lassez-unfair freedom experience of violent, armed America.
    Time and money expended on mass murder rehearsals could be saved by arming all of the teachers and students in schools with semi-automatic weapons and ammo and letting them wipe each other out at will without gummint interference.
    Instead of study hall, have an hour each day set aside for Sniper Training.
    As with masking against Covid transmission, sez the genocidal governors of Texas, Florida, and Missouri (an apt location, given their confederate creds in the last Civil War which failed to wipe conservatives off the face of the Earth, for starting the savage killing violence of Civil War II, to be along shortly), we can’t harsh the mellows of those who wish to kill.
    Why are conservative teachers and administrators in public and private schools not having bounties placed on their subhuman heads for teaching the conservative No Lives Matter crede?
    Besides, it’s too soon to talk about it, so STFU.

  327. Or do you think those things are news because they’re unusual?
    A lot of things are news only because they’re unusual. But I’m guessing there are a lot of schools that may not bother with active shooter drills at all. And others that do the drills with a light touch. It’s the ones that go to extremes that attract libertarian notice.

  328. The Mercatus Center ranks West Virginia as:

    Fiscal Policy:     #39
Regulatory Policy: #40
Economic Freedom:  #40
Personal Freedom:  #17

    So not exactly a bastion of libertarianism.
    Freedom in the 50 states: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom (.pdf, page 11)

  329. I don’t remember any fire drills that involved setting fires, smoke machines, fire department responses, and not telling the students that it’s a drill.
    the fire truck showed up every time my school had a fire drill, because they were part of the drill.
    your concern for the children’s state of mind has been filed – filed right next to the note about your concern for the health and safety of the guns that make this conversation possible.

  330. It’s the ones that go to extremes that attract libertarian notice.
    Libertarian notice, or general notice? Only one of your links was from Reason.

  331. But there’s no reason why it has to be. There’s cheap land for company facilities. And for housing. Nice scenery, too… it should be quite able to attract new industries.
    When I worked for the state legislature here in CO, I spent some time with the people at the Governor’s Office of Economic Development who work with businesses considering moving/growing in Colorado. The big selling point, they told me, the one that all the businesses they cared about were interested in, was the size of the current highly-educated work force. Which covers more than just college degrees.
    As to the “cared about” qualifier, they did the absolute minimum for businesses who wanted to hire lots of minimum wage workers. Probably not too many of those these days since the state minimum has passed $12.50/hr. I understand Texas is the favorite for those companies these days.
    They pointed me at the example of the successful steel mill at the south end of the Front Range. The mill produces on the order of 300 specialty alloys in small lots over the course of a year. Their one large volume item is premium railroad rails that combine both sophisticated metallurgy and fabrication and have an average life two or three times the traditional steel rails. The mill has more degreed research and QA people than it does people working the furnace or fabrication equipment. It looks nothing like the form of the steel industry WV would like to revive, which is bulk production of simple low-carbon steel.

  336. Libertarian notice, or general notice?
    General notice. I should have said, “It’s the ones that make the news by going to extremes that attract libertarian notice.”
    Most of the libertarian articles on active shooter drills appears in Reason with a few in other libertarian publications.

  337. Freedom in the 50 states: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom (.pdf, page 11)
    Interesting. Blue Colorado manages to come out more free than any of the red states surrounding us :^)

  339. A lot of things are news only because they’re unusual. But I’m guessing there are a lot of schools that may not bother with active shooter drills at all. And others that do the drills with a light touch. It’s the ones that go to extremes that attract libertarian notice.
    Several states mandate active shooter drills for schools in state law. I don’t know if those mandates hold for private schools or not. I imagine that varies by funding status.
    The schools that do have these sorts of drills likely are schools in well off districts. It costs a bunch to hire an outside company to do those drills and that sort of money does not get spent in a district that cannot afford to retrofit their doors with working locks for barricading the doors.
    This last point, lest anyone think it rare. Was a point of contention in our contract bargaining with the University of California. A few classrooms lack any means of locking the doors from the inside or of preventing entry in the case of an active shooter.
    Also, the training on offer is often mandated, but seldom compensated financially. Teachers are expected to go through the training as part of their normal classroom prep.
    You can bet that the unions would have strong opinions about what sorts of training would be appropriate, and that these active options drills would not be one of those.

  340. Also, the training on offer is often mandated, but seldom compensated financially. Teachers are expected to go through the training as part of their normal classroom prep.
    If the problem is real, real enough to have drills to protect students, then having them protects teachers as well. So meeping about having to learn them seems just petulent. Actually, about on a par with people who complain about being expected to get vaccinated.
    You’ve got plenty of valid issues to complain about. This isn’t one of them.

  342. If the problem is real, real enough to have drills to protect students, then having them protects teachers as well. So meeping about having to learn them seems just petulent. Actually, about on a par with people who complain about being expected to get vaccinated.
    We are not talking about going through training to lock doors and keep lights out here. We are specifically talking about the sort of training that CharlesWT was highlighting, where a company brings in all the teachers and puts them through a day of active shooter *simulations* with paintball guns.
    Teachers are fine with drills and with being expected to act in loco parentis for their students. This is not that.
    “Meeping.”
    I have a friend that taught at Virginia Tech. We know the gig. We know the risks. We’ve all been through a lockdown or two.
    But if the institution starts acting like we are expected to be part SWAT team as well, and go through training for how to take down an active shooter, that’s an entirely new gig.
    Your lack of empathy and imagination is noted.

  343. You’ve got plenty of valid issues to complain about. This isn’t one of them.
    I actually think it is. If something is required for your job, and your employer is reaping the benefits, it is incumbent on the employer to provide the required tools, be it hardware, training, whatever.
    Unfortunately, your take is the way management tends to think of labor in the US (and pretty much everywhere else) Of course, the individual situations are different, but it looks something like this
    labor-if you were really serious about this, you’d pay for X for us.
    management-How about instead, we hire some people we know to give you training. Oh, and you should donate your time to do it, so we can pay the people we know more.
    It’s just taking the model developed for the military and applying it to education.
    https://www.pogo.org/database/pentagon-revolving-door/

  344. Every time I teach in a new classroom on campus I go to that room and look at the layout and map the exits from the building. I note whether there is a window in the door or not. I check to see if the lock is working. I look for where students can gather to be least observed by a shooter outside the room.
    Two or three times an academic year, I have the conversation in my head whether the grade I give or the comment I make in class to defend another student is going to provoke the young man with obvious personal issues that I have been tasked with teaching and with being an emotional support for.
    Two or three times a year I hear about one of these from one of my colleagues who is dealing with this in their own classroom.
    It’s hard for college teachers. It’s harder for the teachers who are in loco parentis, who are asked to treat every child as if they were your own.
    Live in those shoes for a bit before you pop off about meeping.
    This shit is very real.

  345. We are not talking about going through training to lock doors and keep lights out here. We are specifically talking about the sort of training that CharlesWT was highlighting, where a company brings in all the teachers and puts them through a day of active shooter *simulations* with paintball guns.
    Perhaps I did not read Charles’ words carefully enough. Because my take was that it was precisely the former kind of training he, and you, were speaking of. Hence my comments.
    If the schools are running teachers thru combat training (and, presumably, giving them service weapons to carry at work, so they can use that training), that is a very different case. And would definitely merit both pay for training time and increased pay rates to cover seriously expanded duties.
    But are schools actually going that route? I ask in the hope that someone here has access to actual data on how often that is the case.

  346. https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/advocacy/active-shooter-drills-harmful-or-helpful/
    Now, a dangerous trend is making active shooter drills more traumatizing than helpful. And this trend could make its way into State Houses across our nation.
    Without a doubt, many of us might think active shooter drills are like fire drills. They should help educate and train students on how to take a crisis seriously. Certainly without putting them in harm’s way.
    Instead, many of these drills have become live-action simulations of fatal shootings. Rather than empowering students, these simulations can include shooting pellet guns at teachers and spreading fake blood to mimic the scene of a shooting. Sometimes, students aren’t even aware the exercise is just a drill. Moreover, these tactics hurt students and do not help prevent school shootings.
    there is also a faq on Texas S.B.168
    https://sandyhookpromise.app.box.com/s/hqaxi9wozadly5dmxg2mn4mfp9pz5jd3

  348. Sometimes, students aren’t even aware the exercise is just a drill.
    i’m 100% sure we weren’t always told a fire drill was a drill.
    the problem isn’t training to handle X, it’s X.
    if the training to handle X is troubling because it’s too close of a simulation of actual X, X is still the problem.

  351. Genocidal mass murder by the conservative movement’s hate news outlets, the conservative movement, and gun manufacturers continues unabated and unpunished:
    We should be having a conversation about mass shootings at FOX News, the RNC, and Federalist Society soirees, but it’s perverted, puke dead fucking conservative America where it’s always too soon to talk about the mass murder of school children and black churchgoers.
    The conservative movement wants public schools to remain open to give shooters’ ample target practice as well as encouraging the spread of Covid-19 variants.
    Shooting public school teachers and kids is just a replay of the mass buffalo killoffs racist, murderous American conservatism achieved throughout the 19th century.
    The long game is to destroy all public education and get back to keeping the niggers in their segregated place.

  352. Hey, I screwed up that link and revealed my email page in that last comment.
    Please delete that 8:42 AM, if possible.
    Thank you, moderators.
    I stand behind the rest of the comment.

  353. today in LOLWTF
    Newsmax wonders if Carlson is being pressured by the leftist bosses at FoxNews to say good things about Putin.

    “Fox News’ lurched to the left is maddening for nearly every conservative, including myself,” Stinchfield told his viewers. “And I wonder now, if the leftist leaders of this Trojan horse of a so called conservative network has compromised Tucker Carlson. Now, Tucker is a man that I have absolute great respect for. The fact is Tucker and I agree on most issues, which is why I’m baffled by his defense of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Unless of course, is Tucker operating under duress? Why else would he proclaim something like this about NATO and Vladimir Putin?”

  355. per cleek’s quote @9:17 —
    1. Rooting for injuries
    2. Funny how they persist in confusing their garbled version of a left/right axis with their idols’ idolizing of authoritarian thugs.
    Or something. None of it makes any sense except as propaganda.

  357. None of it makes any sense except as propaganda.
    There was a TV show called Short Attention Span Theater in the late 80s and early 90s. The name should be repurposed for modern “conservative” media and politicians, the distinction between which is now blurrier than ever. Politician become pundits or TV personalities and vice versa. Today’s arguments contradict yesterday’s arguments, and no one notices or cares. It’s incoherent faux outrage over manufactured boogie men updated daily al a cleek’s law. It’s impervious to rational discussion.

  358. Where the worldwide anti-woke conservative movement is headed unless it is violently removed from the Earth:
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/mel-gibson-hungary-and-the-sense-of-normal/
    Gibson the actor ain’t bad.
    Gibson the man is a woman-beating, Jew-Burning pussy who needs the shit beat out of him. But there are 80 million of him infesting America.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/12/mel-gibson-anti-semitism/620873/
    Fake Christian and murderer in his dumb hat Rod Dreher also finds anti-woke cover in Hungary.
    Dreher and Gibson: two orthodox pigs for the roasting.

  360. i’m 100% sure we weren’t always told a fire drill was a drill.
    Fires aren’t personal and don’t follow you into the parking lot to kill you.
    More links for people to (hopefully) read, from a group that cares deeply about student health, safety, and wellbeing.
    https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-impact-of-active-shooter-drills-in-schools/
    As outlined in Everytown’s Impact of School Safety Drills for Active Shootings report, the organization, along with AFT and NEA, supports trauma-informed trainings for school staff on how to respond to active shooter situations.24 This research further emphasizes, however, the importance of excluding students from these trainings. Given their unique developmental stage and mounting evidence of the various harms inflicted and sustained following these drills, this is now even more apparent. Everytown, along with AFT and NEA, do not recommend drills for students. If a school does implement active shooter drills for students, Everytown, AFT, and NEA’s previous report outlines six still salient recommendations:
    Drills should not include simulations that mimic an actual incident;
    Parents should have advance notice of drills;
    Drills should be announced to students and educators prior to the start;
    Schools should create age and developmentally appropriate drill content with the involvement of school personnel, including school-based mental health professionals;
    Schools should couple drills with trauma-informed approaches to address students’ wellbeing both during the drills, and over a sustained period thereafter; and
    Schools should track data about the efficacy and effects of drills.25
    Comprehensive school safety plans require far more than periodic active shooter drills. In fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent that these drills may not even be an essential part of the equation, as they appear to cause unintended but serious harm to participants and the broader community, whereas alternative, proactive school safety measures risk none of these repercussions and boast a far stronger evidence-base.
    I am ambivalent towards some of the things discussed in these plans and I understand that people bring their own school experiences to the discussion, along with (hopefully) their knowledge of their own kids. But what educators bring to these discussions is experience with thousands of kids from thousands of backgrounds all responding to the shared environment of a classroom and a school. No one else in these discussions have that perspective, constantly listening, and negotiating between the personal and the communal.
    Non-teachers remember what it was like for them to be a student and extrapolate these situations from their own experience and a handful of others closely associated with their own. Teachers deal with hundreds of individual students from vastly different backgrounds across decades of service, and are tasked with finding ways to connect across all of that.
    It would be nice if people in the US started to realize this, and listen to teachers as if what they brought to the conversation was unique and valuable, and worth listening to.

  361. Fires aren’t personal and don’t follow you into the parking lot to kill you.
    indisputably. a shooter is a different, much more acute. threat. i truly don’t think drills need to be hyper-realistic. but they do need to be effective. and they do need to happen, despite what libertarians think.

  362. Non-teachers remember what it was like for them to be a student and extrapolate these situations from their own experience and a handful of others closely associated with their own. Teachers deal with hundreds of individual students from vastly different backgrounds across decades of service, and are tasked with finding ways to connect across all of that.
    I think of my relationships with my teachers and how I remember them and how they remember me. I marvel at their being able to remember one out of so many while I only have to remember a handful of them. Way more people each year times so many more years. I know they don’t remember all their students, but it seems like they remember a lot of them, some from several decades ago. It’s a lot to keep in your head.

  364. There are about 130K K-12 schools in the US. There have been 32 school shootings this year, about 90 since 2018.
    Let’s say about 30 a year, in recent years.
    That means about a 1-in-4333 chance that somebody will shoot somebody else in your kids’ school, in a given year.
    That’s relatively unlikely, but not astronomically so. It is, apparently, about as likely as being hit by a car.
    We teach kids to not cross in the middle of the block, and to wait for the “Walk” sign before they cross. At least, people in my relatively densely populated area so, it may be less relevant in rural areas.
    So I guess we should teach kids how to respond to a school shooter. It could save their life.
    To reiterate my own comment above, and cleek’s point above, the problem is not that we’re teaching kids how to respond to a school shooter.
    The problem is that we have something like 30 school shooters a year.

  365. I’ll restate my point:
    The problem is that we, as a culture, accept something like 30 incidents of school shootings a year as the price we are willing to pay for widespread and largely unregulated access to and ownership of firearms.
    We’d rather have the guns.
    That’s the problem.

  367. The problem is that we have something like 30 school shooters a year.
    Might it be informative, or at least interesting, to look at school shootings over time? When did they start? Has the number flattened out, or is it still increasing? Things we need to know.
    And, probably more controversial, what changed? Correlations first, to give some idea where causation might lie. And bearing in mind that, rather than a visible change, we might be looking at something more subtle like passing a threshold.

  368. If only the school violence were limited to the land of raging hormones and big feels. High school kids are remarkably good at dealing with this sort of thing – right up until they actually have to deal with this sort of thing.
    My wife taught at the school that Blaze Bernstein attended, and that his killer had briefly attended. Not a school shooting, but a big thing for students to have to deal with nonetheless. It does put a face on the sort of violence that may come to stalk the halls for them.
    Sandy Hook, however, came for kids unequipped and unprepared to understand, or to really separate pretend and reality. Only a shadow separates the drill from the reality there, at least on an emotional level.
    I make jokes about cellphone alerts in my First Class spiel because it has to be mentioned, but you don’t want that specter hanging over all the introductions. But I’d far rather address that with a bunch of young people cosplaying adulthood in a college classroom than with any of the groups younger than that where I would not just be an alternative role model for being an adult, but an actual legal parental stand-in. That’s a lot.
    And it gets more “a lot” the younger you go.

  369. Might it be informative, or at least interesting, to look at school shootings over time
    I’m sure that would be both informative and interesting.
    But we would still need to deal with the fact that about 30 times a year, somebody brings a gun to school and shoots people.
    Our response so far seems to be (a) teach kids how to respond to being shot at, and optionally (b) arm school staff so they can shoot back.
    The idea of doing anything whatsoever to manage access to firearms doesn’t appear to be on the table.
    It’s a weird idea of what ‘freedom’ means. In my opinion. Personally, I’d rather be free from worrying about whether somebody is gonna shoot school kids.
    What can I say, I appear to be out of the mainstream.

  370. The more chalk outlines there are, the freer America becomes.
    The more bullet holes in human flesh there are, the freer America is.
    The more automatically bullets pierce their human targets, freedom rejoices.
    The more Covid deaths there are, the freer America is.
    The more common flu deaths there are, the freer America is.
    The more auto accident deaths there are, the freer America is.
    The more suicides there are, the freer America is.
    Death is the prime leading indicator in the index of free societies.
    If an asteroid wiped America off the face of the Earth tonight, the perfectly fulfilled freedom envisioned by our forefetusfathers will have been achieved.

  371. I’m sure that would be both informative and interesting.
    But we would still need to deal with the fact that about 30 times a year, somebody brings a gun to school and shoots people.
    Of course we do. But while there are some things which are obvious (as we all know, way too many guns out there), there may be others which could be done without having to battle the 2nd Amendment. Not that there’s not an issue there that needs addressing; just that there might be easier, and quicker, steps that could be taken. Figuring out what those are really require more information than we currently have.

  372. As someone who spent half a decade researching the intersection between masculinity, violence, and identity in pop culture, I think this piece shows a lot of insight:
    In acknowledging mass shootings as a cultural script and the limits of how we construct masculinity, we can begin to consider how to change it. Ideas about masculinity are transmitted through multiple channels – the family, media, entertainment, schools, college campuses, politics and the military – and we can interrupt it in these channels, too. White parents, for examples, can teach boys other definitions of how to “be a man,” ones that don’t see aggression as “natural.”
    https://theconversation.com/mourning-after-mass-shootings-isnt-enough-a-sociologist-argues-that-societys-messages-about-masculinity-need-to-change-173727

  373. the intersection between masculinity, violence, and identity in pop culture,
    It occurs to me that there’s one thing we had growing up in the late 50s and early 60s that is missing today: Maverick. Here was a show whose hero routinely went out of his way to avoid violence (whereas the villains were all too prone to it). It’s not that he was incapable of it. Just that he saw it as a last resort, to be avoided whenever possible.
    Maverick was nobody’s idea of a whimpy character. But he didn’t have to be violent to be a man. (Or to get the girl.) Is there a comparable character in today’s TV world? Not that I’m aware of.

  374. Sugarfoot wasn’t bad on that count either.
    Film Director George Stevens, a World War II veteran, hated firearms, having seen firsthand their destruction of human life. When he directed “Shane” with Alan Ladd, about a gunfighter drawn unwillingly but once again, and for the last time (yeah, the closing scene of Shane heading into the mountains on horseback after the final gunfight is a dead man riding) into violence, he insisted the sound crew make the firing of the weapons as loud, deafening, and horrifying as possible, and it is.
    He hated the easy, bloodless violence of many John Wayne westerns, although Wayne made some good movies too, before much of the cheap Maureen O’Hara spanking crap later in his career.
    Jack Palance made his career breakthrough as the ruthless sociopathic gunfighter in “Shane”.
    Unfortunately, the tough guy pussies in the conservative movement, and I include their gun molls in our government, who seem to be asking to be shot full of lead, including fake Christian Amy Coney Barrett, fashion themselves after Palance’s character, not Ladd’s, despite all their fucking lying bullshit about good guys with guns.
    Wyatt Earp today, and his myth, would be shot in the back by a conservative.

  375. Paladin came across as a high-function sociopath if not a psychopath. He had rules and would protect the weak and innocent. But if you gave him a reason, he would shoot you dead and be annoyed that he had to reload his gun.
    John Wayne didn’t like Clint Eastwood and his movies. He thought they tarnished the western mystic.
    Next February, Amazon Prime is releasing a series based on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. Tom Cruise did an Ok job of playing Reacher in the movies. Child portrayed Reacher as a six-four, 250-pound psychopath. At least, in the series, Alan Ritchson is six-two instead of Cruise’s five-seven.

  376. there may be others which could be done without having to battle the 2nd Amendment
    man, the lengths we go to in order to deal with the effects of the 2nd A are amazing.
    the gun strokers get their guns, and we all have to live in fear of being shot at any time, for any reason, by someone being free. even the gun strokers have to worry about it, and they cite it without irony as a reason we all (but they don’t really me “all”) need guns.
    some fucking deal.

  377. It occurs to me that there’s one thing we had growing up in the late 50s and early 60s that is missing today: Maverick.
    Sadly, we can’t all be James Garner. 🙁
    Among other things, inventor of the reverse 180 degree J-turn vehicle launch.
    And yeah, in Bret Maverick, a smarter version of the western protagonist.

  378. Sadly, we can’t all be James Garner. 🙁
    But more of us could at least try. It would be a better world if we did.

  379. But more of us could at least try. It would be a better world if we did.
    After the first set of Garner/Mariette Hartley Polaroid commercials, Garner famously told the producer he would walk unless they hired her to the same contract he had.
    I have always kept those commercials in mind as an example of actors making the role look so absolutely effortless that in this case, most of America believed they were married.

  380. But more of us could at least try
    I’ll make it a goal to play a lot more poker (livin’ on jacks and queens).
    The episode where Maverick spent the whole time smiling and leaning back in a chair whittling while others undertook his sly and underhanded revenge plot is simply unmatched.

  381. I’ll make it a goal to play a lot more poker (livin’ on jacks and queens)
    Now we just have to sell it to the RWNJs….

  382. One of the advantages of a childhood spent in Hong Kong was that we got lots of American TV series (but not ads). So I remember Maverick well, and fondly. But not in any detail, not having seen any for approximately 50 years. And I very much like Michael Cain’s story about the contract for the Polaroid ads, although I never saw them. I might try to search some out on Youtube…

  383. No sooner written than done! What a world we live in….Now I would like to see the episode where Maverick spent the whole time smiling and leaning back in a chair whittling while others undertook his sly and underhanded revenge plot. It sounds great.

  384. It sounds great.
    Garner always said it was his favorite Maverick episode. I wonder if that was because most of his effort was sitting on a porch whittling and saying, “I’m working on it.”

  386. i take it back … looks like most of those are just trailers, theme songs, etc. 🙁
    I loved Maverick back in the day. And James Garner generally.

  388. James Garner generally.
    Then add in Julie Andrews and you can get something like Victor/Victoria. A real great film. Those two are both great, and awesome together.
    And utterly amazing that something featuring homosexuality that positively (I’m talking the supporting roles, obviously) could get made in the early 1980s.

  389. Andrews did a good job playing the role of a woman passing as a man playing a woman. And Garner’s character’s at being attracted to someone he thinks is a man.
    A number of KPop dramas involved women passing as mem. And the men around them questioning their own sexuality because they’re attracted to them.

  391. Andrews did a good job playing the role of a woman passing as a man playing a woman. And Garner’s character’s at being attracted to someone he thinks is a man.
    Quite true. But I was thinking more (in my last paragraph) of Robert Preston and Alex Karras sympathetically playing two men who are unambiguously gay. At a time when homosexuality was still so strongly disapproved that liberals derided Ronald Reagan by referring to him as “Ronnie buttf*ck”. Talk about ahead of its time!

  393. I don’t know what is going on at the NYT but they are doing f@cking fantastic journalism about US war crimes, the sort of thing they could have been doing years ago, but my gosh, they are making up for lost time. It is almost like they picked up some Noam Chomsky rant and said to themselves “ my gosh, he’s right. The American press, us included, really does suck most of the time.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/18/us/airstrikes-pentagon-records-civilian-deaths.html
    However, given that this is the United States, it probably won’t make any long term difference.

  394. Also, a bit of a surprise is the NYT’s recent piece on foreigners in China who shill for the CCP.
    “Millions have watched Lee and Oli Barrett’s YouTube dispatches from China. The father and son duo visit hotels in exotic locales, tour out-of-the-way villages, sample delicacies in bustling markets, and undergo traditional ear cleanings.
    The Barretts are part of a crop of new social media personalities who paint cheery portraits of life as foreigners in China — and also hit back at criticisms of Beijing’s authoritarian governance, its policies toward ethnic minorities, and its handling of the coronavirus.
    The videos have a casual, homespun feel. But on the other side of the camera often stands a large apparatus of government organizers, state-controlled news media and other official amplifiers — all part of the Chinese government’s widening attempts to spread pro-Beijing messages around the planet.”
    How Beijing Influences the Influencers

  395. I don’t find the China story as surprising— the NYT is usually critical of the propaganda efforts of countries seen as our rivals.
    Though China brings out various forms of politicized silliness on both sides. We are entering a new Cold War with them and that creates motivations for people to understate or overstate Chinese government guilt on various issues.
    For instance ( though I don’t remember how the NYT treated it) ) the very notion that Covid might have come from a lab became a politicized cultural marker ( on both sides) rather than something to be decided if possible by the science. ( To be clear, I take no stance, my opinion is worthless because I have essentially zero understanding of the science and my opinion of the Chinese government would be the same either way— I think they’d lie if they were responsible and they are a brutal authoritarian government and I also think some right wingers were very eager to assume their guilt.)

  396. I think they’d lie if they were responsible and they are a brutal authoritarian government and I also think some right wingers were very eager to assume their guilt.
    Agreed on all counts.
    And thanks, various peeps, for Maverick episode info. Will pursue.

  398. Mitch McConnell is suddenly legitimizing the Jan. 6 committee. But why?
    Simply put, Trump’s incessant attacks on McConnell are beginning to bear fruit. Also, McConnell could easily have dodged the question. That he chose not to suggests that he sees more upside than downside in commenting. Not good news for Trump and the MAGAots.
    It does point up the fact that the enemy of my enemy may also be my enemy. But if they want to hurt each other, well,
    “Never interrupt your opponent while he is engaged a making a mistake.”

  399. It’s a poisonous fruit.
    My God, how we are played for the slimmest glimmer of hope by these villains.
    It’s Pavlovian.
    McConnell and Trump throw meat to either side of the cage and off we go slavering.

  400. It’s a poisonous fruit.
    How fortunate that, unlike with law enforcement, you cannot be barred from taking elective office because your victory was “fruit of a poisonous tree” — you know, the one your opponent nurtured, which took him down.

  401. Manchin kills the BBB
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/us/politics/manchin-build-back-better.html
    I wonder to what extent he is just a front, the guy, along with the Arizona moron, willing to take the heat for doing exactly what corrupt corporate— excuse me, moderate— politicians wanted. The last thing that crowd wants is some sort of clear demonstration that government can improve the lives of ordinary people with policies that are clearly liberal— building bridges is fine, even Republicans usually favor that except when they are being nihilists.
    Forget about climate change. Only impractical radicals care about that.

  402. The Democrats should just nominate a Sinema- Manchin ticket for 2024. I mean, you can’t have a fossil fuel company paired up with the pharma ceutical corporation as your nominees, but this as close as you can come to cutting out the middleman. She can be the face of young dynamic leadership while we have the comfort of knowing that a seasoned veteran like Manchin is there to back her up. All the boxes are checked. Speaking of which, the checks should come pouring in, though there might need to be some creative accounting to stay within the law for corporate contributions. I can write the campaign literature.
    Might as well be pragmatic. It’s not like progressives have anyplace to go.

  403. Forget about climate change. Only impractical radicals care about that.
    if Biden and the rest of them didn’t care about climate change, they wouldn’t have been fighting to keep it in the bill for the past umpteen million weeks.

  404. lefty loons: “We need to tie the BBB to the Infrastructure bill, and pass them together. It is our only leverage.”
    Moderates: “Nah. You don’t have the votes. You are making the perfect the enemy of the good. There will be unintended consequences…”
    Joe Manchin: “I have THE vote.”
    Squaring circles continues to be difficult.
    Today is not a good day. Here’s hoping it will get better.

  406. Reconciliation. Yup.
    50 votes. Yup.
    Manchin is an ass. Undoubtedly.
    not everything is a conspiracy.
    With all due respect, I urge you to consider that too much straw is a fire hazard.

  407. not everything is a conspiracy.
    Left or right, if the things you see as obviously correct don’t get done, obviously there must be a conspiracy involved in thwarting it. It’s simply unthinkable that lots of people simply disagree with you on what is the One True Way.

  408. Conspiracy is an overused lazy word. Thinking that the WTC was brought down by CIA explosives is a conspiracy. Thinking that some centrists are secretly happy that Manchin stopped the bill is not quite the same thing as imagining the WTC was wired with explosives and tens of thousands of people never saw it happen.
    Anyway, I don’t really care to have the usual conversation about one true paths, etc…. Moderates have spent decades adopting a Centris right Republican framework on what is politically and economically pragmatic, so we get crap like the piece below about deficit hawkishnesss just days after the Senate passed a gigantic Pentagon spending bill. This is a stupid country and moderates have done their part in making it so. Lefty puritans sometimes do so as well, but mostly on tactics.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/19/business/biden-agenda-ambitions.html

  409. A conspiracy theorist is someone who sees conspiracies where none exist. Is there a term for someone who sees accusations of conspiracies where none exist?

  410. someone who sees accusations of conspiracies where none exist?
    Is this

    I wonder to what extent he is just a front, the guy, along with the Arizona moron, willing to take the heat for doing exactly what corrupt corporate— excuse me, moderate— politicians wanted

    somehow not an accusation of a conspiracy? Especially when Manchin’s behavior is adequately explained by a combination of personal financial interest and a personal desire to (as he reasonably might see it) get reelected in a very conservative state.

  411. That Manchin dropped the last of his anti-America carpet bombs on FOX News is the pretty poisonous bow on the enormous pile of dogshit he’s been emitting from both ends since his evil compatriots 1/6/21 attempt to violently overthrow the U.S. Government.
    He profits mightily from the inflation in human-killing carbon-based energy assets … metallurgical and power plant coal …. but no one else except his vermin constituents is permitted to participate in the windfall.
    If both sides are going to do it, then both sides need to have the goddamned fucking worst done to them.
    Obviously, his floating living quarters’ close adjacency to a pier over water has him sucking whatever corrupt Republican and Trump Mafia dick he needs to pleasure to avoid swimming with the fishes in cement waders.
    Fuck this country.

  412. Is it Groundhogs Day again again?
    Nothing new to add because nothing has changed.
    Look to alternative institutions for any actions that can be taken to build a less catastrophic future.

  413. Is this somehow not an accusation of a conspiracy?
    You might want to take that up with whomever wrote those words, rather than generalizing it to everybody who disagrees with you.
    Just a thought.

  415. This is straightforward. Since January, Manchin has consistently said he wouldn’t vote for a bill that included significant spending on climate change. The media largely stopped asking him about it — I suppose they figured there was a secret deal, or why else would Schumer put someone who publicly opposed the Dems’ signature environmental policy in as chair of the Energy committee? Doesn’t matter what Manchin might have been saying on other aspects of the BBB. It was dead as long as it had $400B of climate change spending in it, and I’ve said so repeatedly.

  417. With all due respect, I urge you to consider that too much straw is a fire hazard.
    i’m pretty sure you used it all up @11:44

  418. I am happy to claim to be a conspiracy theorist by the definition wj and others use— I think there are likely to be a number of moderate politicians who are glad to have Manchin and Sinema take the heat. I can’t prove it. It might be wrong. But lumping this notion in with the other kinds of things called conspiracy theories is silly. People in politics tell lies. Shocking, I know. Much of politics is about hypocrisy, often about extremely serious things. Right after the November election a lot of moderates were blaming the progressives for the loss in Virginia, which was odd if everyone was in agreement about the desirability of the BBB except Sinema and Manchin.
    Anyway, with me embracing the conspiracy theorist label in this case ( without claiming to know it for certain), perhaps the intellectually serious pragmatists in the thread can pocket this concession and move on. I am in fact a conspiracy theorist by wj’s standards, which I find ludicrous. If you follow human rights issues it is beyond obvious that people in politics in both parties regularly lie their fracking heads off. It is more of a shock when they don’t.

  419. I think there are likely to be a number of moderate politicians who are glad to have Manchin and Sinema take the heat. I can’t prove it. It might be wrong.
    There is, I submit, a difference between being glad that someone else’s actions are providing cover for you. Thus allowing you to avoid having to stand up and admit to your position. And actually conspiring to have one person take some action on behalf of others.
    That there are those who are relieved that Manchin is taking the heat for them, I do not doubt. But that there was a conspiracy, I beg leave to doubt — at least until someone comes along with actual evidence.

  420. wj,
    Which Dem Senators do you have in mind who are “relieved that Manchin is taking the heat for them”?
    And just for curiosity, are there Republicans you can think of who are grateful to Manchin for keeping them from having to vote against BBB?
    My suggestion is: let those Dems and those Reps get together as a third party (The Mods) and be done with it. The country and the world might move several steps closer to hell as a result, but moderately and without unseemly squabbling.
    –TP

  421. Which Dem Senators do you have in mind who are “relieved that Manchin is taking the heat for them”?
    I was responding to the characterization of “moderate” Senators. I’m not sufficiently into the Senate personnel to have names at my fingertips. (Somehow, the nut cases — Hawley, Cruz, etc. — come more rapidly to mind. 😉

  422. And just for curiosity, are there Republicans you can think of who are grateful to Manchin for keeping them from having to vote against BBB?
    Rather similarly here. Although Collins does leap to mind. And, perhaps, Romney.

  423. Rather similarly here. Although Collins does leap to mind. And, perhaps, Romney.
    The idea of Collins or Romney voting for BBB is simply farcical.
    51 Senators are dead set against BBB. 50 of them are fucking Republicans.
    Remember that the next time you hear anybody blubbering on about bipartisanship.

  424. wj,
    Your perennial faith (or hope in, or maybe charity toward) the shameless Susan Collins is touching. Though I will say: she does fit my definition of a Moderate(TM).
    –TP

  425. The idea of Collins or Romney voting for BBB is simply farcical.
    And I never said that they would have. I said that they they might well be glad that Manchin was making it so that they didn’t have to vote against it. Which was the question I was asked.

  426. Is taking refuge in Manchin’s shadow the new definition of Moderate(TM)?
    I get what you’re saying, wj. The likes of Susie and Willard would vote against a BBB if it came to the floor, because they’re Republicans and their one “principle” is opposing everything Democrats propose. But showing their true colors would ding their Moderate(TM) marketing schtick. So, you seem to say, they’re probably grateful to Manchin for giving them cover.
    Just like the Moderate(TM) Democrats you postulate but can’t name.
    It’s beginning to sound like you think cowardice, or hypocrisy, or something, is a defining aspect of “moderation”.
    –TP

  427. But showing their true colors would ding their Moderate(TM) marketing schtick.
    No need to worry. The filibuster provides them all the cover they would need.

  428. It’s beginning to sound like you think cowardice, or hypocrisy, or something, is a defining aspect of “moderation”.
    The fact that some moderates are cowards does not make cowardice the defining characteristic of moderates. Any more than the fact that some on the left are violent and totally detatched from reality outside their own tiny bubble makes such lunacy the defining characteristic of progressives. It isn’t, as you well know.
    For that matter, the fact that various RWNJs stule themselves as “conservatives” doesn’t make being a racist reactionary fascist (any or all of those) the defining characteristic of conservatives.

  429. 51 Senators are dead set against BBB. 50 of them are fucking Republicans.
    More as a discussion point than anything, no one has offered Manchin a BBB that strips out the $450B climate change spending. Granted, such a bill appears to be DOA in the House — Pelosi lacks the votes to pass just the social spending parts without the climate change. It may be DOA in the Senate as well — I don’t know how many of Schumer’s caucus are adamant that climate change has to pass this year.

  430. But showing their true colors would ding their Moderate(TM) marketing schtick.
    Sorry, TP, it is not possible to ding Collins’s Moderate(TM) marketing schtick. She has been pulling this scam for so long that it is bullet-proof.

  431. I guess it will take switching the navy to coal again with an exclusive contract for WV mines Manchin has financial interest in. Maybe also adding some punitive taxes for renewables (that part could even get some GOP support given that they try that on the state level now and then.).

  432. I guess it will take switching the navy to coal again with an exclusive contract for WV mines Manchin has financial interest in.
    But perhaps Manchin’s interest is not in coal per se. In which case, it might be sufficient to provide him with equally lucrative interest in some renewable energy concerns. Especially since he is already aware that, even absent green energy efforts, the coal business is shrinking. And at an increasing rate, too. Just a thought.

  433. “ And actually conspiring to have one person take some action on behalf of others.”
    Wj, if that is all you are saying I have even less interest in debating it. I don’t think people usually have to get together and point out the obvious. If Sinema and Manchin are willing to be the bad guys, then there is no reason for anyone to call them up and say “ keep it up so I don’t have to”. It’d be dumb. You’d be handing them a weapon to use against you. Only an idiot would trust either of them.
    Most of my “ conspiracy theories” are of this type, Politicians and government spokesmen don’t have to get together most of the time to plan on who is going to sprout nonsensical crap about human rights ( the issue I follow the most). I could tell them what to say, because everyone knows what you are supposed to say and what will get you in trouble. Ilhan Omar regularly treads over the line, as she did last June, triggering a bunch of completely farcical BS from politicians in both parties. Some of them apparently did get together, but it was hardly necessary. The crap writes itself.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/10/ilhan-omar-democrats-harassment-silencing-israel-hamas-taliban

  434. It seems that the word ‘conspiracy’ is the crux that all this is built on, but it feels like the word itself is pretty amorphous. I’d think that offering Manchin some sort of lucrative alternative interest in order for him to support the climate change portion of BBB seems to fit my definition of ‘conspiracy’, but it seems that it isn’t a conspiracy if it supports keeping moderate safe from becoming a bad word.
    A while back, I posted about Weber and his notion of ‘elective affinities’. I think that’s what Donald is thinking and I tend to agree with him. With elective affinities, you have to consider the forces that are keeping them in place. With those forces, the question then becomes can they be changed/educated? And if not, what then?
    Moderate(tm) is a pretty solid shtick, but so was liberal. If defining examples of moderation become Manchin and Collins, I’d say keep away from the word, it’s too late to save it.

  436. If Sinema and Manchin are willing to be the bad guys, then there is no reason for anyone to call them up and say “ keep it up so I don’t have to”.
    Sorry, Donald, but you are simply ignoring what the word “conspiracy” means. Conspiracy requires that there be communication on the topic. Otherwise, all you have is a bunch of people with similar intetests. At most, you have a set of people for whom someone else is “a useful idiot.” They may be delighted at his actions. But if they didn’t discuss those actions with him, they simply do not meet the definition of a conspiracy.
    I’d think that offering Manchin some sort of lucrative alternative interest in order for him to support the climate change portion of BBB seems to fit my definition of ‘conspiracy’
    Actually, what it is is bribery. If several people discuss giving him said bribe, and one or more do so, that is a conspiracy. But the bribe itself isnt.

  438. a conjunction of interests is not necessarily a conspiracy. Pointing out these interests and noting how they may align to affect policy outcomes is not engaging in conspiracy thinking.
    It is not engaging in conspiracy mongering to point out that there are a good number of Dem Senators who are hesitant to simply get rid of the filibuster. Take it away DiFi. There are a couple who apparently won’t even state their opinion one way or the other. To assert that those who are so hesitant are given political cover by the likes of Manchin and Sinema is to simply state the obvious.
    Here’s a list, but it may be a bit dated these days.
    And not desiring to leave without throwing out a bit of straw, I take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy holidays.

  440. Wj, you are the one who brought in the phrase “ conspiracy theory” and pointed to my earlier post as an example. I don’t care what you choose to call it. I think it plausible that some centrist politicians are happy to let Manchin and Sinema take the heat. I don’t think the fear of deficits is sincere, given that the immense Pentagon budget was increased over what Biden asked for by overwhelming margins. I don’t think centrists ( or some of them) want liberal social programs that would help ordinary people.
    Call this a CT or not— it doesn’t matter to me.

  441. I don’t think the fear of deficits is sincere, given that the immense Pentagon budget was increased over what Biden asked for by overwhelming margins.
    In most cases, I agree with you on that. Although their reaction to the Trump tax cuts is probably a better indicator.
    I don’t think centrists ( or some of them) want liberal social programs that would help ordinary people.
    My sense is that this dislike is more characteristic of today’s reactionaries** than of centerists. (Or even real conservatives.) There is disagreement over how best to help ordinary people. And, in some cases, over how much help is optimum. But not that help is appropriate.
    ** The concept of populist reactionaries hurts my head. But that somehow seems to be the mindset of a lot of the MAGAots.

  442. I’m going to rant a bit on the phrase “ conspiracy theory” because it is a major pet peeve of mine.
    The usual political sophisticate says that conspiracy theories are silly because large groups of people can’t keep a secret for very long. It leaks. I am not sure that is always true, but anyway, it is frequently irrelevant because of the emperor’s new clothes effect. Some officially promulgated truth might be openly false but large groups of people sometimes have an incentive to proclaim a falsehood as true, or else to avoid talking about it.
    I heard recently that a church I used to attend ( not Catholic, btw) is being sued by some former choirboys. You can guess why. Personally I knew nothing about what was happening, but the claim is that some people in authority in the church had to have known. So I don’t know in that particular case what the truth was but it would not surprise me if the allegations are true and it was covered up. At least that was the case in countless other similar instances, in churches, church schools, Hollywood, the Charlie Rose Show, Epstein, etc…. Some people know and cover it up, some people suspect, and some people are ignorant and in many cases there is a conspiracy going on to keep it that way. It is a big secret until all of a sudden it isn’t, but a lot of people knew all along.
    Currently the NYT is exposing a conspiracy by the military to cover up the number of civilians it was killing. In this case anyone paying attention has known for years something like this was going on, but it has been mostly ignored. But investigators have been going to villages and bombed out cities and finding that the number of civilians killed vastly exceeded the number admitted by the military. The drone strike in Kabul was typical. Virtually every word of the official story was false but in that case the NYT could do an investigation and forced them to back down. It isn’t that the military is deliberately killing civilians. ( Sanctions do that, indirectly, but with deniability. We are in the process right now of starving people in Afghanistan.). They just jump to conclusions, because mother wrong people and claim to do thorough assessments afterwards and they lie about that.
    Ilhan Omar questioned Secretary Blinken last June about war crimes and he said that Israel and the US have mechanisms to investigate their own actions. This is a literal truth which in reality is total bullshit, because in practice the mechanisms work to cover up the truth most of the time. Omar said that victims of Israel,the US, the Taliban, and Hamas need some way to get justice. Immediately politicians in both parties starting shrieking about the terrible impropriety of comparing democratic countries with terrorist organizations. Which is a complete non sequitur, since democracies going back to Athens are perfectly capable of committing war crimes, sometimes openly with popular support and other times “ secretly”, like the emperor with his wonderfully stylish invisible attire.
    So yeah, anyway, when the evidence supports it I am a conspiracy theorist or at least open to it. In Manchin and Sinema’s case, I think a sensible centrist politician might secretly cheer them on, but keep his or her distance. There wouldn’t be any reason to call them and “ conspire”. It isn’t crazy to imagine politicians getting together and doing that, but I would doubt the wisdom of anyone who would trust Sinema or Manchin on anything.

  444. Donald, there is no real question but that conspiracies happen. (The efforts by Trump and his supporters to overturn the last US election definitely qualifies, for example.) But the number of actual conspiracies is vastly smaller than the number of imputed ones. So my feeling is that, if someone proposes that a conspiracy is responsible for something bad which happened, the burden is on them to provide some evidence for that accusation. I’m willing to be convinced; but absent clear evidence I am extremely skeptical.

  445. Well, the people who bomb the wrong people abroad and who shoot the wrong people in America were mothered, and it was definitely wrong to mother them.

  446. Their mothers should be arrested and executed for wrongly mothering:
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/tell-me-flattering-lies-or-the-country-gets-it
    Or maybe their mothers belong on ventilators so the plugs can be pulled:
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/the-republican-party-is-pro-covid
    It starting to look like a conspiracy by a cabal of mothers to murder America by infiltrating by stolen elections their evil spawn into our institutions.

  447. Manchin’s mother’s bad birthing decisions have inflated the price of Maseratis into the stratosphere.
    Meanwhile, decent mothers will be denied the child tax credit by the mother of all vermin murderers, Joe Manchin.
    And meanwhile, I’m down ten grand in the first hour of the stock market this morning as Manchin condemns all of us to economy-strangling deflation.
    The coal miners in West Virginia are denied the black lung funding in the BBB.
    They can eat the dust of Manchin’s Maserati speeding off to conservative Hell.

  448. From nooneithinkisinmytree’s link:
    “Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political”
    I doubt anyone here would disagree with this as an ideal. (Or as the general practice in the last century.) But today? However regretably, that’s just not the world we live in.

  449. So my feeling is that, if someone proposes that a conspiracy is responsible for something bad which happened, the burden is on them to provide some evidence for that accusation. I’m willing to be convinced; but absent clear evidence I am extremely skeptical.
    But you wouldn’t be equally skeptical of a plausible proposition and one that is plainly ludicrous, would you?

  450. When there’s an entire “system” to propagandize, cover up, classify, and prosecute leakers of war-crimes: yeah, I don’t think you can call it a ‘conspiracy’.
    You *could* call it “standard operating procedure”, however.

  451. Breyer: “shouldn’t be political”
    This is merely another of the dreamscape lies we noble Americans fondle ourselves to sleep with regarding the palpable dog shit we’ve lived and breathed since the founding of this country.
    There is not a single Supreme Court Judge nomination and confirmation in history that was not a political act.
    It just that this big Lie has become more obviously brazen as the malignant conservative movement and its dupes on the other side move their lying lips under fake innocent eyes.
    Tinkerbell is an ideal.

  452. Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political
    and I am Marie of Romania

  454. or maybe Manchin is just a conservative.

    Publicly, his biggest gripes are about the cost of the bill. But privately, Manchin has told his colleagues that he essentially doesn’t trust low-income people to spend government money wisely.
    In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.

  455. … he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children …
    I wonder whether Manchin spoke from an intimate knowledge of his own constituents. Or was it out of mere bigotry? I know: maybe it was from intimate knowledge of his constituents’ bigotry?
    –TP

  456. What’s the threshold for the percentage of parents who would blow the money on drugs above which you wouldn’t support the child tax credit? Does Manchin have one in mind? What’s his prediction for the actual percentage of parents who would spend the money on drugs? Does he have such a prediction?
    I’m sure some number of parents would do that, so I would agree that it’s north of zero percent. Beyond that, I have little idea. I’m not sure where to put the support threshold, either. Is he? Seems like he should be.

  457. … he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children …
    One wonders if he would favor some nice draconian penalties for those, specifically those of his constituents, who are found to be doing so.

  458. The word “deplorables” comes to mind.
    Guy with Maserati I expect is rubbing shoulders with his armed druggie constituents daily, I’d expect.
    How many current and former coal miners in West Virginia, whose bodies are savaged by decades of hard labor rely on opioids to lessen the chronic pain of providing coal to Manchin’s customers.

  459. Breyer has told several people who’ve made unofficial efforts to push him to retire that he thinks the confirmation process shouldn’t be political
    and I am Marie of Romania
    Me too. FFS.

  460. My wild guess: in absolute per capita numbers rich people spend significantly more on controlled substances than the have-nots Manchin is so suspicious of. Quality has its price after all (and I assume that this weighs more than the volume discount rich brats can negotiate).

  463. The link asks: “Should one millionaire senator really be able to send millions of children back into poverty?” Clearly not.
    But then, one might with equal justice as whether a (supposedly) millionaire ex-President should be able to successfully lure multitudes into sedition? And, if he eventually succeeds, far worse poverty for even more children.
    Manchin may be despicable, but he is nothing like the worst case among our national politicians.

  467. Fortunately, the number of these types of so-called leftistsis miniscule (I hereby invoke the wj no true conservative standard).
    An entirely reasonable invocation. Although I do wonder whether the number is really that miniscule. Perhaps it is merely the lack of a massive propaganda channel (ala Faux News) to amplify their voices…. But a blessing for you either way to have their loudness constrained.

  471. While the world goes to hell in a handbasket, all I have to say is that conventional orthography demands “minuscule”.

  473. “ I’m willing to be convinced; but absent clear evidence I am extremely skeptical”
    You’d have to read various articles about US air strikes, but it is pretty cut and dried, almost boringly obvious. The US was claiming extraordinary levels of precision in killing large numbers of terrorists and hardly killing civilians at all. Even without reporters going in and interviewing people on the ground the crackpot position would be to believe them without compelling evidence— the common sense position, even before the investigations, is that they were lying. But as it happens, people keep investigating, as with the Kabul drone strike, and yes, as anyone in contact with reality would expect, on this subject the US government is completely full of crap.
    On the main topic of conversation here, Manchin, my feelings are about the sort of thing Thullen writes. So I won’t go into detail.

  476. Remember this well, folks. There are 50 asshole GOP US Senators who resolutely DEMAND that we don’t even have a public DEBATE on BBB.
    So much for the “world’s greatest deliberative body”. What a joke.

  477. So much for the “world’s greatest deliberative body”. What a joke.
    But, bobby, reactionaries always live in the (imagined) past. Why would these be any different?

  478. There are 50 asshole GOP US Senators who resolutely DEMAND that we don’t even have a public DEBATE on BBB.
    My impression is that nobody is having a public debate on bills. The leadership presents legislation and everyone else is expected to stfu and vote on it.

  479. note that the filibuster is technically a refusal to stop public debate on a bill (thus preventing it from coming to a vote).
    or, it was. now it’s just a vestigial remnant of that procedure.

  480. note that the filibuster is technically a refusal to stop public debate on a bill (thus preventing it from coming to a vote).
    The filibuster can be applied to any debatable motion in the Senate. The motion to proceed — ie, to begin debate on a bill — is debatable, so subject to filibuster. This is the tactic that’s being used on the voting rights bills, to block Democrats from being able to even bring the bill(s) to the floor. The Republicans know how unpopular some of what the state legislatures they control are doing is, and don’t want it played out on CSPAN daily for the mainstream media to pick up.

  481. “On the main topic of conversation here, Manchin, my feelings are about the sort of thing Thullen writes. So I won’t go into detail.”
    Donald: I, and I expect many others here, would not mind if you took over my entire portfolio of complaints.
    Besides, as of the other night, after keeping my mouth shut for two years, and after just recently attending a family wedding wherein anti-vax folks in attendance were so glad to see me (including the mother of the bride who has been a new age ditz since forever and skipped all childhood vaccinations for her kids; happily, the bride two years ago took it upon herself to finally be vaccinated for the full complement of normal people vaxxes, plus the Covid vax later), I am venturing into meat world kvetching, as the other night I was sitting and eating at the bar of a really good restaurant in Denver near closing and a younger fellow, who apparently fancies himself to be a sort of conservative elite intellectual type, was nattering away for 20 minutes about the utter ineffectiveness of masking to prevent viral transmission, and then he made the fatal move of too loudly telling the very pleasant young female masked bartender that her mask was useless, so I, from several seats away, demanded the stats on his position, and let him get two sentences into it and told him to shut his f*cking mouth and I’d be happy to finish the conversation, larded with f&ck bombs, out on the sidewalk.
    I’m not proud of my behavior, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the next time I enter the place, I’m asked to leave, but I’ve had it with silence in the face of this torrent of murderous shit (fuck their religious sentiments, fuck their first amendment rights, fuck their constitutional rights; mine are louder) and I will not stand down against these liars.
    It was slightly satisfying to watch him go slack-jawed and the blood drain from his face.
    By the way, I know and am friendly with many of the staff and a couple have divulged to me that nearly every single person who works there contracted the virus during the first wave in 2020 before masking, and of course vaccination, became a rational thing to practice.
    Natch, the evil ones are way ahead of me.
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/antivaxxer-crowds-are-now-attacking-cheesecake-factories-reis-and-panera-bread
    Eating out is not going to be much fun for them or me, going forward.
    So, maybe I’ll give up my day job here.
    Detail away.

  483. I’m so happy for them:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-rich-americans-feel-relief-201510271.html
    I hope they aren’t going to pour their champagne on our heads from their ivory balconies.
    See how even the alleged liberal media have gelded themselves to blame Joe Biden, who has the good grace to believe there is any fucking good grace left in his enemies.
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-biden-wanted-to-be-a-dealmaker-he-may-have-just-failed?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
    I repeat:
    You may have the conservative movement, or you may have America.
    Pick one. The other dies.

  485. I’ve had it with silence in the face of this torrent of murderous shit
    I’m basically there as well.
    If people don’t want the shot, fine, just make sure you don’t put other people at risk. If you’re gonna make a big point out of it and give everybody who is trying to be responsible a ration of crap about it, a ration of crap will be on its way back to you.
    Enough is enough.

  490. so, this popped up in my news feed. It’s more or less of a piece with the last couple of links from nooneithink.
    my own personal experience of this particular time is that I share a nation and a community with a hell of a lot of people who are enraged, insane, and prone to violence. By “insane” I mean detached from reality. Unreachable by reason or logic, or even simple appeals to their own humanity. It seems a reasonable definition of insanity, to me.
    I have no idea what to do about any of that. I keep hoping the freaking fever breaks, but that does not appear likely.
    I’m obliged to live among people who may break weird and start assaulting and killing people if they don’t get their way.
    This is an impossible situation. It can’t continue. What conclusion it comes to is not really up to me, I’m just gonna have to live with it, whatever it is.
    These people are insane. I don’t know how else to describe them.
    And I and people like me are obliged to live among them and hope for the best.
    FUBAR

  493. These people are insane. I don’t know how else to describe them.
    And I and people like me are obliged to live among them and hope for the best
    There was a time when I would have encouraged you to emigrate, unrealistic (and no doubt an infuriating thought) though that may have been. We’re sane here on guns of course, but our democracy is not all that healthy either right now. Canada? I don’t know, I am feeling pretty pessimistic about most of the world at the moment, I’m sorry to say.

  494. Things Democrats should talk about as if they’ve already been proved beyond a reasonable doubt:
    1. He, Trump conspired to steal the Presidency.
    2. He had co-conspirators in Congress.
    Stop pussy-footing around with committees, courts, or other formalities. Call them traitors as casually as you’d call grass green. If their MAGAt acolytes complain, call the MAGAts snowflakes, and double down on the first thing. Say it to reporters, say it on the record, say it in public. Don’t stop saying it. Repetition, not proof, is what seeps through apathy and congeals into something like a zeitgeist.
    I would also like Democrats to keep harping on what benefits Republicans and Manchins are depriving you, the voter, of. No more “We could not make a deal”, but “You’re being robbed by these assholes”. Don’t say it stridently, say it as casually as you’d mention which way water flows. Just keep saying it.
    If reporters or pundits challenge you for saying these things, treat them like you’d treat a second-grader: “I’ll explain when you’re more grown up”.
    Maybe this amounts to nothing more than kicking up sand and yelling “Jehovah! Jehovah!” when you’re already condemned to stoning for blasphemy, but I say it’s no more useless than reasoning politely with idiots and fascists.
    –TP

  495. There was a time when I would have encouraged you to emigrate…
    While you weren’t speaking to me, I’ll note that I am just too old and not quite rich enough, with no automatic by virtue of relatives, to have an emigration path. My wife’s case is worse, as even a cursory medical exam will come up with long-term care before very many years.
    One of the regular commenters is apparently prepared to take to the barricades to try to save the entire country. I’m more inclined to let Indiana (for example) go to hell in its own way — but convince the Indiana state legislature that they would be better off if they let Colorado and neighbors go off on their own.
    Yeah, lunatic fringe. OTOH, a ton of private money going into the goal of being 100% carbon-free energy by 2040 or so out here.

  496. Michael,
    considering how good RWNJ’s are at letting neighbors live the way they prefer, you might have to move to Hawai’i.
    There are worse fates, it’s true.

  497. Re: emigration:
    I’m in the same boat as Michael Cain – too old, not rich enough for that not to matter.
    There are places I’d probably enjoy moving to, but TBH it pisses me off that it’s even something I’d need to consider.
    I was born here, have spent my entire life here. This is my country. I’m not inclined to leave because of a bunch of flaming knuckleheads.
    I have no idea how that’s gonna play out.
    I do have friends who have secured citizenship in other places via documented family histories. Germany, Italy, Canada, maybe Ireland. They might go.
    How ridiculous is it that this is even something that needs to be discussed.

  498. I’m more inclined to let Indiana (for example) go to hell in its own way — but convince the Indiana state legislature that they would be better off if they let Colorado and neighbors go off on their own.
    This makes sense to me.
    If we can’t figure out how to live together, let’s part ways. If folks want to live under the likes of Trump, let alone the rest of the (R) bootlickers, fine with me. You go your way and I’ll go mine.
    And yes, there are blue people in red states and red people in blue states. Folks can move if they don’t like it where they are, or they can get off their @sses and change things where they are.
    But I’m basically fine if this is the beginning of the end of the great American experiment. If (R) governance is the direction this is heading in, Trump or no Trump, I’m done with it.

  499. Some, it’s come to this: I finding for myself seeing upsides of something from QAnon post:

    What do you think of the QAnon theory that Trump is still in the Oval Office, and had plastic surgery to look just like Joe Biden, with the “real” Joe Biden being in prison somewhere, while a Donald Trump impersonator goes to rallies and such?
    I think this is a great theory! Now the QAnon people no longer have anything to complain about! They have “stolen back” the election. From now on, they can also support everything that Joe Biden says or does – since he is “really” Donald Trump. As for that guy running around claiming to be Donald Trump, throw him in jail for tax fraud or something

    No reason the idea is less sensible than other QAnon insanities.

  500. wrs as usual.
    I too was born here etc. etc. I too am without the exact right configuration of immigrant ancestors to get citizenship in, say, Italy, and I too am too old, and not rich enough, to emigrate by other pathways. Sometimes a little part of my thought train turns back to the days when I had an Irish girlfriend and had every intention of living over there eventually, at least part-time. Catholic Ireland even got SSM before the good old USA.
    Oh well.
    If we’re pushed out of our homeland, or not pushed out but end up ruled by the fascist assholes who are threatening and scheming to take over, we won’t be the first. That’s no consolation, but I’ve been trying to face the fact that it’s part of our, or at least my, past privilege to have imagined that I was less at risk of such a fate than other people.
    I grieve most of all for the next generations, but then I remember that fascist governance may not end up being the worst thing they face.
    I also wonder sometimes if our bloggy obsession with politics might not be blinding us to other levers we might pull to change the course of events….

  502. Donald – I agree with the tweeter to an extent, but I really think that he also misunderstands the current dynamic somewhat. I think where the dynamic leaves us is not in anything like civil war or partition. Rather, what I see happening (as I’ve said here before) is a breakdown of federal authority in law enforcement (as rw administrations seek to break the institutions and make them partisan, and the SC applies its thumb in partisan ways to allow only one side to exercise authority). That will leave the states to continue to oppose federal oversight, with GOP governors seeking federal help against lw protesters when they control the presidency and seeking to block federal action when the dems are in power.
    And on the local level we will see local law enforcement resisting Dem governors’ and presidents’ executive orders and enforcing local standards of their own preference.
    We already know what this looks like in the US. It’s the way things were when the Klan was in charge of large areas of the US. It will be low-intensity conflict with rural areas refusing to comply and urban areas troubled by protests and by smaller turf wars held in check by local law enforcement (in a way that looks a lot like Kenosha when it comes to violence).
    And if the LW tries to resist and band together like the RW does with their militias, they are going to be treated like the Black Panthers, with all of the leaders dead or in prison.

  503. Not been following everything super closely, so apologies if this link has been put up
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/us-closer-to-civil-war-new-book-barbara-walter-trump-capitol-attack
    I think the tweeter assumes that ‘a wide swath’ of the country has to support violence as a necessary condition for civil war seems off to me. I suppose for the US to reenact Gettysburg, it is required, but for groups to misperceive intentions, I would think that it only requires a committed minority who are willing to carry out violence to get that started.

  504. How ridiculous is it that this is even something that needs to be discussed
    I completely agree, which is what (I’m sure you all realised this) I was getting at when I said no doubt an infuriating thought. On Janie’s point, Ireland seems better than most feasible societies at the moment (SSM, abortion, rejection of the church by the young) and everyone I know who has a right to it has already applied for Irish passports, which (not coincidentally) also gives them the right again to move and work in the EU.
    Alas, I feel that nous’s description of how things are likely to play out in the US might be on the money. But as for the UK, I am at a loss. I cannot really understand why Keir Starmer, a patently decent, competent man, has not cut through more. Current polls reflect disgust with the Tories (sleaze, incompetence) and disenchantment with BoJo’s shtick, not a real recognition that Labour would be better for most people. Sigh.

  505. Alas, I feel that nous’s description of how things are likely to play out in the US might be on the money.
    Agreed, with the caveat that it’s an on-the-money description of how things are *now*.

  506. My prediction is that we will muddle through. But then predictions are fraught with uncertainty. Especially when they about the future…

  507. I expect both that we will muddle thru, and that things will get worse before they gett better.
    Considering that we already had what amounted to a violent attempt to overthrow the government, how bad constitites “worse” is worrisome,

  508. My prediction is that we will muddle through.
    Maybe the way we are muddling through the pandemic. What’s 800,000 people dead, give or take a few?

  509. Maybe the way we are muddling through the pandemic. What’s 800,000 people dead, give or take a few?
    “Muddling thru” involves surviving, in spite of not having any kind of clear plan.
    That seems to describe the pandemic. Admittedly, “survive” is a very low bar. But that’s where we’re at on that.
    And it’s not looking like any clear plans in train to thwart the next try to overthrow the government. We know they have plans to do that; they publish them. But plans to stop it, preferably start it cold?

  510. i don’t think the US will get to anything like a civil war, or widespread violent uprisings, for one simple reason: Fox News is the primary instigator of this whole thing and it needs advertisers and cable company access. and the kind of advertisers Fox News needs to stay in business as a national channel, and cable TV providers, aren’t going to stick around if they think their brand is going to become associated with roving gangs of murderous zealots.
    they can weather a Jan 6th, and some big names have pulled ads from Carlson’s show. but if it gets too toxic, Disney and McDs will leave the whole channel.
    without Fox News pumping them full of rage, i don’t think the movement can maintain the level of freak-out it needs.

  511. I don’t understand how people can be told over the course of decades that their way of life is being destroyed, and though it never happens, they keep believing it. It’s like when a friend of mine told me Obama was ruining the country but couldn’t tell me how when I pressed him on it. He just was. And are they still doing the “War on Christmas” thing? I stopped paying attention.

  512. I don’t know, Koch, Murdoch, the RNC, and other big money pots could keep FOXNews going well into a bout of mass genocide of undesirables.
    The stock market, never one to pass up a bloody buck, would paly along by coming up with some SPAC-like publicy-traded grifts to fund supplies, like ammo and backhoes to dig the mass graves.
    I doubt Manchin would appear on FOX during the conflagration to express his personal disappointment, for fear his drug-addled constituents might dig up their dead Mamaws and Papaws and hustle their corpses down to the polls and vote for the Republican challenger.
    Disney itself might have a new featured ride at its parks simulating the 1/6 attack on the Capitol with lifelike dummies of lead Democrats to take pot shots at.
    They could have a OH my God, someone’s hung Mike Pence again booth, after which a recorded video of Pence thanking Trump for paying out enough rope to hold the former’s fat Christian ass off the ground long enough to look real.
    The killer conservatives among the customers might get hungry and pay out major dough to mobile McDonalds outlets paced strategically throughout the ride.
    There is plenty of gummint-hating money in America to fund conservative movement plans to kill.
    Remember, in Civil War Numero Uno, Americans packed their picnic baskets, parasols, and the kids up to view and enjoy the slaughter below from bluffs above the battlefields.
    The social media of the day.
    Never underestimate the bloodlust of yer everyday American churchgoing insurance salesmen, attorneys, and itinerant losers.

  513. Fox is less dependent on advertising than many other sources of RWNJ propaganda. Fox gets a cut of your cable bill, if you pay one, because of “bundling”. There may be some cable company, somewhere, of which that’s not true — maybe.
    A bunch of companies announced they would put their political giving “on hold” in the immediate aftermath of The MAGAt Insurrection. I’m sure they quietly went back to funding the GOP/MAGA shitshow very soon thereafter. Does anybody know if someone is keeping track?
    I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Hobby Lobby. Home Depot is dead to me. MyPillow is of course on my forever shit list. Locally, I stopped shopping at Wilson’s Farm Stand when I learned that the owners are big Trump donors. My house needs all sorts of work; when I start looking for contractors I will make sure they’re not MAGAts before I hire them. It’s probably easier to do business exclusively with sane people here in MA than elsewhere, so I can’t really fault people in other states for not doing the same. But wouldn’t it be great if MAGAt businesses had to get by with exclusively MAGAt customers?
    –TP

  514. Fox News is the primary instigator of this whole thing and it needs advertisers and cable company access.
    Fox is along for the ride. They can’t survive their entire viewership going to one of the rivals to the right. We’ve seen their attempts at getting off the crazy train with them calling the AZ vote and with the Jan. 6 attack on congress. Both times they tried to pull back, and both times they ended up getting dragged back.
    Fox is not in charge. They have to dance to the tune set by the RW Internet Id. There are plenty of other media outlets worse than them who are waiting in the wings and dreaming of taking over for them.
    Why else do you think that Carlson remains untouched and unreined?

  515. https://jabberwocking.com/we-have-a-shortage-of-covid-testing-kits-because-nobody-ordered-them/
    Those damned high inventories and storage costs of Shoshalism.
    I prefer the efficiencies of just in time asphyxiation.
    A unvaxxed Trumper neighbor of an old friend of mine during the second wave of Covid earlier this year took 48 hours to croak after stealing my money for a couple of days on a ventilator.
    A female friend of my ex-wife, also unvaxxed, died of the virus a couple of months ago, as did an unvaxxed friend of my former sister-in-law in Montrose, Colorado.
    And yet, minority malignant conservatism seems to pile up more votes every week.
    The lucky dead ones will be able to vote twice in 2022 and 2024, while I’m likely not going to be able to because I’m a living liberal.

  516. The lucky dead ones will be able to vote twice in 2022 and 2024, while I’m likely not going to be able to because I’m a living liberal.
    Oh, you’ll absolutely be allowed to vote, never fear.
    Whether your vote will get counted, however, depends on where you live.

  517. Fox is not in charge. They have to dance to the tune set by the RW Internet Id. There are plenty of other media outlets worse than them who are waiting in the wings and dreaming of taking over for them.
    the internet audience is nothing like the Fox News audience – internet is active, TV is passive, for one. can’t be passively forced to read a blog while sitting in the mechanic’s waiting room. the internet audience is going to be younger (because of the tech) and it’s going to be ideologically fragmented because there’s no single authoritative voice to set the tone and focus for conservatives on the internet – it’s just a bunch of amateur and small-time screamers trying to outscream each other – makes for confused messaging. they may want to take over Fox, but they aren’t going to.
    i mean, how are they all to know when they all have to do an immediate 180 on some principle they thought was central to conservatism, if they’re all following different demagogues? modern conservatism needs a strong central authority to make it work.
    Why else do you think that Carlson remains untouched and unreined?
    because he’s making them money.
    but there is a fairly decent list of current and former Fox News hosts who have been forced to take a sudden time out (sometimes permanently). Murdoch doesn’t let money losers linger for too long.

  518. The conspiracy theory here is NOT the Anthrax one, according to the sick dummies:
    https://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/12/22/wednesday-evening-open-thread-anthrax1/
    “Nothing to see here” and “Both sides do it” are the conspiracy theories of our parlous age.
    “Murdoch doesn’t let money losers linger for too long.”
    There’s a difference between T&A on page three and hawking political violence against elected government and mass death by pandemic.
    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/01/history-of-the-suns-controversial-page-3.html
    Actually, maybe there isn’t a difference for capitalist vermin (as opposed to communist vermin) and therin lies the problem.
    It’s all product, both my titillation and my death.
    Just a different aisle at the bullshit American supermarket.
    On which aisle may I find the rat poison?
    Got an infestation here.

  520. “On which aisle may I find the rat poison?”
    Pretty sure it’s between the cleaning supplies and the herbal remedies.
    But hey, do your own research.

  521. NYT via yahoo (no pay/subscription wall):
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-deployed-surveillance-teams-inside-192056099.html

    The event — like others that had consumed the city since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 — included a variety of anarchists, anti-fascists, communists and racial justice activists. But there were others mingling in the crowd that day: plainclothes agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
    (…)
    The FBI set up extensive surveillance operations inside Portland’s protest movement, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and current and former federal officials, with agents standing shoulder to shoulder with activists, tailing vandalism suspects to guide the local police toward arrests and furtively videotaping inside one of the country’s most active domestic protest movements.
    (…)
    There has been no evidence that the bureau used similar surveillance teams on right-wing demonstrators during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, despite potential threats of violence against the heart of federal government — though the FBI did have an informant in the crowd that day. The bureau has at times used secretive tactics to disrupt right-wing violence, such as efforts that led to charges against men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s governor.

    I’m thinking about what nous wrote earlier about how authorities might not treat groups at each end of the political spectrum the same.

  522. It’s always the surveillance society against anything or anyone left of Sandy Koufax, or even Don Drysdale, America’s ingrown, malignant bias is.
    Not so much, when mass death might be prevented:
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/massive-undercounting-of-deaths-caused-directly-by-covid-19
    Christ, we’re more of a fetishistic death cult than the Aztecs.
    https://qz.com/374994/aztec-sacrifice-was-real-and-its-not-fetishistic-to-be-fascinated-by-it/
    Death must be a sex thing with so-called Christians.

  524. 51% of fetuses polled by InUtero Pollsters say they would vote for freedom of choice Democrats over the Let’s-Murder-Both-the Mother-and-Her-Baby-and-them-sue-them-both Republican vermin:
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/16/2069590/-Republicanism-claims-more-victims-Pandemic-deaths-among-pregnant-Americans-are-now-surging?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=most-shared
    There is a margin of error, as in Amy Coney Barrett has made a huge miscalculation on behalf of rapey Texas Republicans, and not one America will survive.

  527. massive-undercounting-of-deaths-caused-directly-by-covid-19
    And, even then, the numbers from Johns Hopkins now have COVID deaths in the US equaling a quarter of a percent of the population. So one in 400 have died of COVID according to the under-count.

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