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Betty Cracker

You are here: Home / Archives for Betty Cracker

Florida woman, boxer wrangler and football hooligan currently deep-fat frying something in a humid swamp somewhere.

Betty Cracker has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2012.

Running on Empty (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  January 26, 20213:57 pm| 118 Comments

This post is in: Impeach the Motherfucker!, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity

I’ve been avoiding the topic of The Beast, but I just read about Trump flunkies setting up pro-Trump policy “think tanks,” a development that requires vicious mocking. Via Axios:

Scoop: Former OMB director to set up Pro-Trump think tanks

Russ Vought, who led Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, plans to announce two pro-Trump organizations Tuesday, aiming to provide the ideological ammunition to sustain Trump’s political movement after his departure from the White House.

The Center for American Restoration and an advocacy arm, America Restoration Action, will try to keep cultural issues that animated Trump’s presidency on the public agenda, according to people familiar with the matter.

Seems like people who want to keep Trump’s “cultural issues” on the front burner could just join the fucking Klan — less paperwork that way! But a “nonprofit” and “social welfare group” will provide a megaphone for whining about nonexistent voter fraud and lamentations about cancel culture. Plus prodigious grift opportunities, one assumes.

In other news, only five Republicans voted against Senator Rand “Baby Doc” Paul’s motion to dismiss Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial on bullshit procedural grounds: Senators Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse, and Toomey. So, elected Republicans as a body have made their choice between Trump and democracy, and they chose the former.

My guess is some or possibly all of the five Republican senators who voted to hear the trial will vote to acquit, no matter how damning the evidence, no matter how haunting the memory of the howling mob baying for their own blood. Wouldn’t surprise me if the four not named “Romney” vote to acquit, though Murkowski seemed genuinely angry about the attempted coup. We’ll see.

Anyhoo. Open thread.

Running on Empty (Open Thread)Post + Comments (118)

The Troubles

by Betty Cracker|  January 22, 202111:31 am| 185 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics

He Who Shall Not Be Named might be aggressively driving over greens and taking endless mulligans in South Florida, but the rage-addicts he unleashed on the Capitol are unfortunately NOT confined to a relative handful of bellowing horned pelt-wearers, crime-selfie enthusiasts and would-be lynch mob participants. We’re stuck not only with at least some of the coup-fomenters in Congress but also tens of millions of people who sympathize with the insurrectionists. How do we solve that problem?

Since November 2016, it’s been an article of faith with me that people who traffic in wingnut lies should be confronted. Prior to that, I mostly deflected arguments with wingnut family members by reminding them we had a “no politics” rule at the holiday table. But after that, I started calling them out on their bullshit.

It went about as well as you’d expect. I’m at varying levels of estrangement with some relatives, and this has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which they think I’m using as an excuse to avoid them. (Confession: they have a point, probably.)

But to shift from family drama to the broader implications of toxic politics, the coup attempt in DC earlier this month signals the possibility of a full-blown insurgency. That it was centered on a ludicrous orange carbuncle who seems to be rapidly fading from relevance shouldn’t blind us to the lesson that millions of our fellow citizens are okay with domestic terrorism as a political tool.

So maybe it’s time to consider other solutions for reconciliation, interpersonally and on a national scale? An article in The Atlantic by Anne Applebaum explores how people in other countries that found themselves coexisting with a violent insurgency coped:

Here’s another idea: Drop the argument and change the subject. That’s the counterintuitive advice you will hear from people who have studied Northern Ireland before the 1998 peace deal, or Liberia, or South Africa, or Timor-Leste—countries where political opponents have seen each other as not just wrong, but evil; countries where people are genuinely frightened when the other side takes power; countries where not all arguments can be solved and not all differences can be bridged. In the years before and after the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, for example, many “peacebuilding” projects did not try to make Catholics and Protestants hold civilized debates about politics, or talk about politics at all. Instead, they built community centers, put up Christmas lights, and organized job training for young people.

If you think that sounds like policymaking to let the passive insurrectionists off the hook after they supported an unforgiveable break with our social and political compact, Applebaum feels you:

I recognize that this is not what everyone wants to hear. Even as I write this, I can hear many readers of this article uttering a collective snort of annoyance. Quite a few, I imagine, feel that, having won the election, they don’t want to pay for a bunch of happy-clappy vaccine volunteers, or new roads in rural America, or mental-health services and life counseling for the MAGA-infected—let them learn to live with us. I can well imagine that, like the Colombians who hate the reintegration of FARC, many will resent every penny of public money, every ounce of political time, that is spent on the seditious minority. Some might even prefer an American version of de-Baathification: track down every last Capitol-riot sympathizer and shame them on social media, preferably with enough rigor that they lose their jobs.

I know how they feel, because I often feel that way too. But then I remember: It won’t work. We’ll wake up the next morning, and they’ll still be there.

She’s not wrong. But I’m still convinced that dropping the argument and changing the subject creates a permission structure in which people who’ve lost touch with facts, reason and reality itself can act out violently or at least tacitly support those who do.

In his inauguration speech, Biden called for unity and said it was the only way forward, but he also explicitly called out the dangerous nature of lies. And don’t lies have to be called out for the truth to prevail? I’m just thinking out loud here, but that concept seems at odds with the approach Applebaum outlines.

As Steve M. said, the real silent majority is the 81 million who elected Biden and Harris without a single fucking boat parade. We’re strong, but I’m not sure we have the combined might to drag the 74 million-member screeching and aggrieved minority down the road to redemption without confronting the lies, and that means NOT dropping the argument and NOT changing the subject.

Maybe January 6 will fade. Maybe a competent administration will get the pandemic under control, revive the economy and see that prosperity and justice are more equitably shared. Maybe that success will beat back the forces of demagoguery and inspire greater civic participation so that the will of the actual majority is more frequently carried out. That is my hope.

Anyhoo, open thread.

The TroublesPost + Comments (185)

Square One (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  January 21, 202110:49 am| 160 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity

This isn’t surprising, but still, damn:

As they were settling into the White House on Wednesday, Biden administration officials were reportedly stunned to discover that President Joe Biden’s predecessor didn’t have a plan with regards to distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.

A source told CNN on Thursday morning that the new administration will “have to build everything from scratch” thanks to former President Donald Trump’s reported lack of strategy with the vaccine rollout.

“There is nothing for us to rework,” they said.

Biden will have to start from “square one,” said another source, who called Trump’s nonexistent distribution plan “just further affirmation of complete incompetence.”

I doubt the Biden peeps are truly surprised. It’s been obvious for months now that vaccine distribution keeps getting pushed down to the next level with no overarching coordination. It’s happening in Trumpy-ass states like Florida too, with DeSantis shoving responsibility down to the county level with no resources or oversight.

We’ll need hearings on this massive failure at some point, and accountability for the incompetence that will cause so many needless deaths and unnecessary suffering, but first, time to clean up the mess. Open thread!

Square One (Open Thread)Post + Comments (160)

Madam Vice President Kamala Devi Harris

by Betty Cracker|  January 20, 202111:48 am| 261 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Madam Vice President Kamala Devi Harris

Executive power for women. And women of color. It’s a thing now.

Inaugural open thread.

ETA: And now President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Madam Vice President Kamala Devi Harris 1

We survived it.

Madam Vice President Kamala Devi HarrisPost + Comments (261)

Good Cops

by Betty Cracker|  January 17, 20218:54 am| 258 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads

It’s not surprising that as the feds roll up insurrectionists, they’re finding cops who participated in the Beer Gut Putsch (and stupidly posted evidence of their crimes online). Police and military organizations have had an unaddressed right-wing extremism problem forever. Here’s hoping the Biden-Harris admin’s police reform initiatives include a robust de-Nazification component.

There are also stories of police heroism emerging from the failed coup, including the quick thinking of Officer Eugene Goodman, who at great personal risk lured the violent mob up a staircase and away from an unguarded door to the Senate chamber, possibly saving lives. Goodman will probably receive a Congressional Gold Medal for his bravery.

And here’s another brave cop, Officer Daniel Hodges, in a clip that includes one of the most disturbing images from that day. Incredibly, he wasn’t badly injured:

“If it wasn’t my job I would do it for free. It was absolutely my pleasure to crush a white nationalist insurrection,” he said. “And we’ll do it as many times as it takes.”

pic.twitter.com/XxzwGkwL12

— Liam Stack (@liamstack) January 16, 2021

I’m grateful for Hodges’ bravery in the face of that mob and also thankful that he called the insurrection by its proper name. If we’re to pull this country back from the precipice, we’ll need to tell the truth about what brought us to this point.

Open thread.

Good CopsPost + Comments (258)

Cold, gray, predawn, squishable morning thread

by Betty Cracker|  January 15, 20215:50 am| 248 Comments

This post is in: Biden-Harris 2020, Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, President Biden

If you missed Biden’s speech last night, do yourself a favor and watch it when you have a moment:

We have no time to waste when it comes to getting this virus under control and building our economy back better. Tune in as I announce my American Rescue Plan. https://t.co/4YAg0nhJMn

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 15, 2021

The mister and I, cynical and jaded as we are, nearly wept with relief at hearing a normal elected official discuss national policy in a sane and coherent manner. It kind of felt like this:

Cold, gray, predawn, squishable morning thread

To continue the Shawshank Redemption theme, enduring the Trump era has been like “crawling through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine,” but the end is in sight. This time next week, we might no longer be seized with dread at each news alert on our phones or reflexively cringe when the President of the United States speaks. Hope.

Open thread.

PS: Media folks are speculating about whether or not Trump will leave a letter in the Resolute Desk for Biden. Allegedly there have been discussions in the West Wing about it. I hope not because, even if composed entirely in words with no illustrations, Trump’s note would be the equivalent of a crude crayon drawing of male genitalia.

But the speculation got me thinking about the note President Obama left for Trump, which included this:

[W]e are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.

Just like the rest of us, Obama saw the train wreck coming.

Cold, gray, predawn, squishable morning threadPost + Comments (248)

Impeachment Hearings Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  January 13, 20219:00 am| 200 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Impeach the Motherfucker!, Impeachment Hearings, Open Threads, Politics, Trumpery

Here we go again, citizens!

The Democrats serving as impeachment managers are Representatives Raskin, DeGette, Cicilline, Castro (Joaquin), Swalwell, Lieu, Plaskett, Neguse, and Dean. (Thanks, Baud!) The Trump defense strategy on the Republican side is rather less clear to me, but I assume we’ll hear from the kooks in the Sedition Caucus, which comprises most House Republicans.

Open thread!

PS: Sorry for squashing not one but TWO posts, but I’m gonna leave this one up for impeachment hearings discussions.

Impeachment Hearings Open ThreadPost + Comments (200)

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