US politics: When DeSantis go marching in

[Spockydog]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It more cultural than religious.

I was going to say something along those lines in response to Varys' claim that parents aren't lying to their kids.

It is my belief that a large percentage of people who go to church, and subsequently indoctrinate their children, do not believe a word of their religious texts. At least, the stuff about burning bushes and fiery angels and Jesus raising the dead and all the other nonsense.

Because I know for a fact that both of my parents are non-believers. Always have been. Yet as a child I was forced to go to church every week, and even had to endure a brief stint as a fucking altar boy. Fortunately, I managed to avoid getting bummed by my terrifying, alcoholic priest.

[Spockydog]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I believed the moon was made of cheese when I was a kid. And then I grew up. 

I went through most of my life believing that if you flew around the earth fast enough to make it go backwards, you could reverse time. 

[Tywin et al.]

56 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

I was going to say something along those lines in response to Varys' claim that parents aren't lying to their kids.

It is my belief that a large percentage of people who go to church, and subsequently indoctrinate their children, do not believe a word of their religious texts. At least, the stuff about burning bushes and fiery angels and Jesus raising the dead and all the other nonsense.

Because I know for a fact that both of my parents are non-believers. Always have been. Yet as a child I was forced to go to church every week, and even had to endure a brief stint as a fucking altar boy. Fortunately, I managed to avoid getting bummed by my terrifying, alcoholic priest.

100%. My paternal grandfather once tried to get me to go with him to temple when I was around 17. My grandmother had passed away recently and I was visiting him in Palm Springs. I told him no because I don't believe and there'd be no point. His response, which shocked me because I always thought he was super religious, was that most of the time he pretended because my grandmother really did believe and he found temple to be great for networking. Turns out he thought most of the Torah was pretty silly. I mean, the opening is an impossible story where God is outwitted by a clueless woman and a talking snake with magical fruit. Stop and think about that. Why would anyone read that and take anything that came after seriously? Anyways, his pitch after I first turned him down was that it's a city of old people and everyone's grandchildren are in town. You might meet your own Jewish American Princess there. So I went and mumbled prayers I half remembered. 

52 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

I went through most of my life believing that if you flew around the earth fast enough to make it go backwards, you could reverse time. 

Lol. The moon is cheese came from watching the same damn Wallace and Gromit movie a hundred times as a kid because at my maternal grandparents place they owned like five VHSs. It was that and Fantasia, The NeverEnding Story and the sequel and The Land Before Time. Over and over and over again. Getting them to rent something new when I was staying with them was a real victory.

[Gaston de Foix]

@Zorral, this one's is for you: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/opinion/george-santos-oppo-research-dccc.html

FWIW, I'm sympathetic to the oppo researcher because serial fabulism is one of those things that the mind doesn't encompass until you have enough data points.  And the mystery of Santos' unexplained wealth which allowed him to self-fund is still unexplained. 

So, I know New York has a long history of shitty electoral processes (and Zorral mentioned some here yday I believe), but how is it possible we don't know who carried the District for Governor yet?

[Maithanet]

Interesting piece in WaPo (limited clicks).

This is sort of the answer to the myriad articles from 2016 of  "what do random white people in an Ohio diner think?"  This is about a guy, Cody Johnston, who has all the demographic markers of a Trump voter (white, working class, ex-military, lives in North Georgia), but as an adult has gradually moved from being apolitical to openly anti-Trump. 

Quote

 

He avoided politics, too, because he did not want to take part in a system that had only two parties, both of which he saw as geared toward helping the powerful instead of regular people like him and everyone he grew up around, from Jasper to Fairmount to Rydal. “There’s so much that could be done to help people,” he said. But after Trump was elected, and then Greene, politics became almost impossible to ignore.

“You couldn’t turn around without seeing some sticker, some post promoting violence and hate,” he said. It was the red hats, the flags, the conspiracy theories, the bullying, the racism. It was the sheer totality of how the Trump movement seemed to overtake peoples’ minds, he said.

“To me, anything that starts to dominate everything about you — when you can only interact with an ideal instead of have a conversation — I’m skeptical.”

But what was most insulting to him of all was the assumption that he would go along with all of it because of how he looked and where he lived. He started to feel like a spy. He had neighbors who made him aware of a bar near his house that was supposedly a gathering place for people in the white nationalist movement. He got a Facebook invitation to join some militia group, which he blocked. He had White co-workers who flagrantly used the n-word and made racist comments to him, and he came to enjoy their shock when he told them to cut it out.

 

[Gorn]

11 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

But if you think lying to your kids is a good parenting strategy, you do you. 

 

I kept it ambiguous until then, but when I was straight-up asked by my (then) five-year-old "is Santa real?", I told her the truth. I honestly cannot comprehend parents who would do otherwise. Why, for what?

[LongRider]

12 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Does Matt Gaetz make an effort to look sinister?  Seriously?

He and Boebert, who was sitting next to him, spent their time texting, and not clapping or standing.  CSPAN has the receits. 

[Martell Spy]

11 minutes ago, LongRider said:

He and Boebert, who was sitting next to him, spent their time texting, and not clapping or standing.  CSPAN has the receits. 

Yeah, I was wondering about that? Why? Are they Putin ass-lickers, is that their position? And what is conservative about that?

[Maithanet]

They will not support Biden regardless of the topic.  Normally the way to do this on Ukraine would be to say he's soft on defense, but Trump is sufficiently pro Putin that they go the other way.  So they embrace the Russia propaganda position that the Ukraine money is being wasted and the US should embrace isolationism.

[DireWolfSpirit]

17 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Yeah, I was wondering about that? Why? Are they Putin ass-lickers, is that their position? And what is conservative about that?

Yes they (Republicans) are all Putin ass lickers. They covet his blood money, thats what their criminal party is all about.

[LongRider]

I doubt Boebert could find Russia or Ukraine on a map and am unconvinced she understands what the war is about.  Zelensky was elected President during a period of peace, and yet, when Ukraine was invaded, he has stepped up and showed the world that he is the right man for his time.  So revolting to see those two cowards and their disrespectful behavior.  

[Tywin et al.]

I hate to beat a dead horse here, but it again comes down to religion, one that is completely distorted. Putin's Russia is a white Christian ethnostate and that's what the Boeberts of the world dream of for the US. Having a foreign Jew come and lecture them on why Putin is an evil piece of shit is not a message they want to hear.

[DMC]

I can't wait til Ty has a kid so he can sit them down and tell them, "in the interest of trust I need to be honest with you - you were a mistake."

[Tywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, DMC said:

I can't wait til Ty has a kid so he can sit them down and tell them, "in the interest of trust I need to be honest with you - you were a mistake."

Lol, my dad told me I was born so he could get his trust fund. 

Also, there's a decent chance I do have a kid, but the mom has told me before never to go down that road. So the guy she's now divorcing is on the hook for that.

[DMC]

So with amendments currently being voted down, it's now safe to say the omnibus will pass after Mike Lee very nearly torpedoed it last night with a Title 42 amendment (should be noted Sinema helped provide the solution to that problem by offering a competing amendment border-state/moderate Dems could vote for instead). 

I think this lame duck matches up pretty well with 2010, commonly considered the most productive lame duck ever.  Highlights there included Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, the 9/11 First Responders bill, the FDA Food Safety bill, and the Senate ratifying the New START treaty.  This was all under the larger compromise of Obama extending the Bush tax cuts in exchange for extending unemployment insurance.  

Compare that to this session with the SSM bill, ECA reform, Ukraine aid, a big boost in disaster relief, and a huge boost in veteran health care funding.  Granted, all but the first were tucked into the omnibus, but that's also a striking difference - the 2022 lame duck actually passed a budget whereas in 2010 only a CR was passed that extended (instead of updating) spending only until March.  Moreover, the compromise here was much easier to swallow - advancing a huge boost in defense spending as opposed to extending the Bush tax cuts.

There were some things Schumer failed on - most notably the antitrust bills I mentioned previously.  Other misses include the Afghan Refugee Act, the Open Courts Act, and crack/cocaine sentencing reform (albeit that deal got blown up because Garland just did it himself).  But a lot of the bigger misses - reviving the enhanced Child Tax Credit, the SAFE Act, immigration/farmworker visa reform - were never gonna happen. 

Also, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act appeared to be a realistic one they failed to get in the omnibus, but the last two Senate votes were on amendments (Cassidy's then Merkley's) that passed overwhelmingly and appear to address this, at least in some fashion.  Can't find any details on em just yet but that seems promising.

All in all, an impressive end to easily one of the most productive Congresses of this century.

[Week]

I like to pile on Florida as much as anyone else but we need to remember that there are good people (and DMC) there too:

/Salute

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

@Zorral, this one's is for you: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/opinion/george-santos-oppo-research-dccc.html

FWIW, I'm sympathetic to the oppo researcher because serial fabulism is one of those things that the mind doesn't encompass until you have enough data points.  And the mystery of Santos' unexplained wealth which allowed him to self-fund is still unexplained. 

So, I know New York has a long history of shitty electoral processes (and Zorral mentioned some here yday I believe), but how is it possible we don't know who carried the District for Governor yet?

I read that, and found it unsatisfactory.  Have suspicions it was submitted as a 'corrective' to the voters' beliefs that the NY Dem are not doing the job.  

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Week said:

there are good people (and DMC) there too

Hey!

Anyway, yeah, it appears Cassidy's amendment essentially was the PWFA and Merkley's was a supplement that provided further protections, particularly for breastfeeding.  Cool, cool, cool.

[Week]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Hey!

[Fragile Bird]

You guys obviously don’t have enough Ukrainians in the US. Canada imported them by the tens of thousands more than a hundred years ago to fill up the west to make sure, probably, pro-American cowboys wouldn’t try to break off and join the US.

There was a story about Putin dismissing all actions taken by Canada against Putin’s regime over the past few years because “Canada has too many Ukrainians, and politicians don’t want to lose votes”.