Y'all. Y'ALL.
Sometimes I read something so terrible that all I can do is post it here for you to read and then head to comments to give it the thorough mocking it richly deserves.
To wit: "I discovered the rest of America on my summer holiday," by Lawrence Summers.
In case you don't know who Larry Summers is, there is a helpful mini-bio at the end of the article: "The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former U.S. Treasury secretary."
I had a few thoughts on Twitter, including this one: I feel like a U.S. economist should know how farms and seasons work.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You know me and my unreasonable expectations!
Showing posts with label It was either this or a 2000-word screed riddled with profanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label It was either this or a 2000-word screed riddled with profanity. Show all posts
OMGGGGGGG WHAT DID I JUST READ
An Observation
You know, I bet it would have been easier to convince Hillary Clinton to be slightly more progressive than it is trying to convince Donald Trump not to be an obscene shitwheel nightmare monster at all times.
Just a thought.
Which is maybe one that "Democrats and Republicans are all the same" dead-enders can keep in mind, in 2020.
If we still have free and fair elections.
I Have a Question
[Content Note: Sexual harassment and assault; misogynoir; rape apologia; victim-blaming.]
Do you think the Venn diagram of motherfuckers who are disgracing themselves by defending Les Moonves and the shitwheels who are embarrassing themselves by trash-talking Serena Williams is a perfect goddamned circle?
That's a rhetorical question.
Please feel free to discuss both stories in comments.
What Did I Just Read?
[Content Note: Moving GIF at link] Ben Smith at BuzzFeed: I Helped Create Insider Political Journalism. Now It's Time for It to Go Away.
Let me just say as a person whose life was turned upside-down for awhile partially as a result of the hot-take fast-take who-cares insider political journalism of the aughts, there was never a time when it should have existed.
Also:
People who don't understand it was a luxury of their privilege that they were *ever* able to treat politics as a game cannot responsibly cover politics. It was evident then, and it is evident still. https://t.co/Mz4vySLWia pic.twitter.com/WMGgHm69zl
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 30, 2018
If you can't view the image embedded in the tweet, it's a screenshot of the final two paragraphs of the piece, which read:
And yet, perhaps there's reason to be nostalgic for that amoral, tactical coverage of American politics. When I spoke the other day to one of the key figures of the old school, who declined to be quoted by name, he sounded a little wistful:Following my tweet, Eastsidekate and I had the following exchange (which I'm sharing with her permission):
"You almost long for the days when it was a game."
Love 2 B nostalgic about amorality
— eastsidekate (@eastsidekate) August 30, 2018
Right? The Good Old Days, when white dudes shaping the public conversation could be glib sociopaths and there wasn't a Nazi in the White House to make them feel bad about it.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 30, 2018
It must be tough to have a case of the sads about Donald Trump making it so obvious that your immorality has consequences.
Bernie Sanders, What Are You Even Doing Now?
It is the people, in open primaries and caucuses, who should determine the Democratic nominee for president - not well-connected "super-delegates." This is an important step forward in making the Democratic Party more democratic and transparent. https://t.co/FC2sFEHjsf
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 12, 2018
Closed primaries are a safeguard against ratfucking.
Requiring primary voters to be registered with a party to participate in the primary does not guarantee that no one will register just to try to sway a primary in a troubling direction, but it is a major deterrent which prevents that from happening en masse.
Anyone advocating for open primaries and caucuses while a foreign adversary is meddling in our elections, and the sitting president and his governing party are doing nothing to stop it, does not give a single fuck about the state of our democracy. He only cares about what benefits him personally.
Not exactly news about Bernie Sanders. Just more proof.
[Previously: In the News; Oh, Team Bernie; Kentucky and Oregon Primary Wrap-Up; and Great Point.]
Everything's Fine
Cool. https://t.co/BESmyDi3jT
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2018
Good for her.
*jumps into Christmas tree*
Trump Has Two Unsecured Phones, Because Security Is "Inconvenient"
"His call-capable iPhone is issued by White House staff and is swapped out 'through routine support operations' to check for hacking." The president's unsecured phone is "checked for hacking." JFC. https://t.co/S0HWz1Oa1w
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 22, 2018
This is such a serious problem — and so obviously serious that I can't imagine I would even need to explain why it's so serious, nor that I could possibly convince anyone who's chosen to remain unconvinced.
All there is left to say is:
Submitted without Further Comment
[Content Note: Nativism; violence.]
Good lord, @politico. This is an incredibly insensitive headline. The Republican Party is *creating* an immigration nightmare for millions of people. Their president called some immigrants "animals" yesterday. A number of deported people have been killed. What are you even doing. pic.twitter.com/omfVFZwRKf
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Stop Helping, Bernie
Gentle readers, I give you Senator Bernie Sanders:
@KaraCalavera "Democrats should stop politicizing this is issue. It may turn out president...was not colluding with the Russians.”https://t.co/hpY6K3bzJE
— Kelly Wallace (@kellyawallace) May 11, 2017
The relevant portion of the video clip starts just after the 4 minute mark. Sanders says that people have lost faith in the Republicans And the Democrats before stating, "Democrats should stop politicizing this is issue. It may turn out president...was not colluding with the Russians."
Um.
WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING, BERNIE?
(That's rhetorical).
(h/t Eastside Kate.)
Stopppppppppp. Just Stop.
[Content Note: Bigotry; privilege; rape culture.]
The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof is 'splaining at us again: "Trump Voters Are Not the Enemy."
Tolerance is a liberal value; name-calling isn't. This raises knotty questions about tolerating intolerance, but is it really necessary to start with a blanket judgment writing off 46 percent of voters?Deep breath.
...Go ahead and denounce Trump's lies and bigotry. Stand firm against his disastrous policies. But please don't practice his trick of "otherizing" people into stick-figure caricatures, slurring vast groups as hopeless bigots. We're all complicated, and stereotypes are not helpful — including when they're of Trump supporters.
Kristof is a wealthy, U.S.-born, non-Muslim, straight, white, cis man. The first way he is likely to be directly impacted by Trump's agenda is getting a tax break.
During the election, my next-door neighbors had a Trump sign in their front yard. When the news broke that Trump had openly admitted sexually assaulting women, that sign stayed up. Every time I walked out my front door, I was reminded that my neighbors were okay with a man doing to women something that was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me.
I was also reminded that they were okay with taking away my bodily autonomy. With harming marginalized people because of who they/we are. With supporting law enforcement policies that will get Black and brown and disabled people killed. With open hostility toward immigrants, about which I'm not supposed to care since my immigrant husband is, per their definitions, "one of the good ones."
I'm not "stereotyping" them. I'm judging them based on a choice they made and proudly advertised right on their front fucking lawn.
Where is the compromise with people who believe the things they do? We don't have a difference of opinion on the best way to achieve similar goals. We fundamentally disagree on who counts and who doesn't.
Not viewing them as my enemies is a luxury I simply don't have.
And it's because they view me as their enemy, and always have, even when I didn't regard them in kind.
Submitted Without Comment
LOL perfect. https://t.co/P5C0wZSv2H
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 18, 2016
Take a Nap, Lindsey Graham. Just Take a Nap.
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Actual Headline: "Lindsay Graham pours beers, contemplates marrying Carly Fiorina."
Actual quote:
"Date, marry, or make disappear forever," said Bash. "Take your time, senator."Graham, a natural wit, found his way around the question. "Date" came first. "Sarah Palin -- we'll go hunting on our first date," he said. Next was "marry," an easy joke set-up.
"Carly, because she's rich," said Graham.
When Bash pressed, and asked Graham if he would erase the existence of Hillary Clinton, he was ready with the punchline.
"No, but is she rich? She said she was flat broke."
Actual laughter: [this space intentionally left blank.]
Actual GOP candidate: Lindsey Graham. Can someone call the Senator a cab? It's clearly time for him to go home. Goodnight Senator! Don't forget to take your nonsensical misogynist asshattery with you!
Number of the Day
[Content Note: Guns.]
56%: The percentage of US respondents in a new Gallup poll who "believe that if more Americans carried concealed weapons after passing a criminal background check and training course, the country would be safer."
Nope.
This Fu@#king Guy
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
This fucking guy posts a picture of himself holding up a sign reading "This is not what a rapist looks like," as if there is a particular way that rapists look, and then writes a piece about how being asked to attend a university seminar on consent and bitterly moans: "To be invited to such a waste of time was the biggest insult I've received in a good few years."
You know what, dipshit? Shut the fuck up and go attend the seminar and think about the extraordinary privilege you have that being compelled to spend an hour listening to someone talk about consent is "the biggest insult" you've received in "a good few years," a time period during which millions of women around the globe were raped, which is rather a more significant insult.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Racism.]
"The president is the most racist president there has ever been in America. He is purposely trying to use race to divide Americans."—Conservative shitlord Ben Stein.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL FUCK YOU.
Stein went on to add: "What the White House is trying to do is racialize all politics and they're especially trying to tell the African-American voter that the GOP is against letting them have a chance at a good life in this economy, and that's just a complete lie."
OMG. Ben Stein, here is just a big bag of SHUT UP.
Up is down. Left is right. Black is white. Red is blue. And it's President Barack Obama who is "purposefully trying to use race to divide Americans," not the people who can't stop engaging in racism against our nation's first black president.
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.
Congrats?
[Content Note: Gender essentialism.]
Hey, remember the lady who decided to earn a marriage proposal from her boyfriend by making him 300 sandwiches? Well, you'll be happy to hear she's now engaged. And has a book deal! Because of course she does.
And it only took 257 sandwiches.
As for those of us who didn't find it charming that a woman was publicly documenting winning her boyfriend's promise of marriage by making him sandwiches, well, we can LEARN TO HUMOR sheesh: "If he wasn't the kind of guy that was worth one sandwich, I wouldn't be making 300 sandwiches. And plus it was a joke. It was light, it's funny. Come on, it's a sandwich. It's supposed to be just lighthearted."
It's not my fault that I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington. Take it up with the assholes who tell me to STFU and make them a sandwich.
[Video Description: A clip from the film Bridesmaids in which Kristen Wiig is riding in the passenger seat of a car driven by Jon Hamm, who tells her: "It's called humor. Learn about it!"]
Quote of the Day
"What most of us know about the heartland barely extends beyond Dorothy's house in Kansas, or Sarah Palin pablum about 'real Americans.'"—New York Times contributor Timothy Egan, in a piece headlined "How to Heal the Heartland."
"Us." What a neat definition of "us."
A definition that excludes all of "us" who actually live in the place about which "we" know nothing.
It's really great how someone who writes the people who inhabit "the heartland" out of existence is given an extraordinary platform to write a piece about "how to heal" it.
My contempt for this shit cannot be measured on a scale fathomable by human intellect.
[H/T to Sarah Kendzior, via Sydette.]
Meanwhile...
[Content Note: War; self-harm.]
While many veterans of the wars he started are killing themselves and others, former President George W. Bush, who "sheds a tear" over suffering vets, is about to open an art show of his supercool paintings of world leaders.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Today host Matt Lauer: ...and tomorrow on Today, President George W. Bush: He's taken up painting since leaving the White House, and now an exhibit featuring his work, called "The Art of Leadership," is opening at his presidential library. The president gave his daughter, Jenna, a preview.I just can't fucking even.
Cut to clip of Today reporter Jenna Bush Hager interviewing her dad.
Bush Hager: Have any of these leaders seen their portraits?
Bush: They have not.
Bush Hager: Not one?
Bush: Not one.
Bush Hager: What do you think their reactions will be?
Bush: I think they're gonna be, uh, "Wow. George Bush is a painter." [They both laugh.] I mean, I'm sure when they heard that I was painting, if they have, they're gonna say, "Well, I look forward to seeing the stick figure he painted. Heh heh heh." [They both laugh.] But, I hope they, they take it in the spirit in which these were painted in, that was, ahh, the spirit of friendship and, ahh, that, uh, you know, I admire them as leaders, and was willing to give it a shot, in terms of getting people to see how I felt about 'em.
Cut back to the Today studio where the hosts ooh and ahh over the "good tease," as Lauer describes it.
