Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

False Scribes! False Scribes!

Wetsuit optional.

What fresh hell is this?

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Everybody saw this coming.

Han shot first.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Let there be snark.

We can agree to disagree, but i’m right.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Are you … from the future?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

It might be fine, or it might be a clusterfuck.

This is how realignments happen…

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.

Return of the Green Heron (Open Thread)

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I think this is the same Green Heron I posted a photo of the other day. He or she has been hanging out on our dock a lot lately — a most welcome visitor, even if not as green as advertised!

Return of the Green Heron

The other day in comments, we talked a bit about podcasts, and I recommended The Moth, which rebroadcasts stories people tell at live events (or did in the Before Times, anyway). It’s not political — just compelling tales from good storytellers all over the English-speaking world. (They may have a similar program in other languages; I hope so!)

I’ve just started listening to a podcast called “In Plain Sight” that is about Lady Bird Johnson. It’s fascinating; I had no idea how large a role Mrs. Johnson played in her husband’s career and in formulating domestic policy in his administration! The podcast is based on meticulous, contemporaneous audio and written records she kept during her time in the White House.

It’s a political podcast because Mrs. Johnson was a first lady who was heavily involved in 1960s-era politics and a witness to historical events like the Kennedy assassination. But it’s a break from current politics, at least for me so far, and that’s what I’m after.

What podcasts are y’all listening to, if any? This is an open thread for any topic, not just podcasts, but I’m curious if there are any more recommendations.

 

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Moderates vs. Centrists

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Last weekend, I had to take a long road trip, so I downloaded some podcasts. In my faltering quest to become a “normie” (i.e., someone who doesn’t obsess over politics), I’ve stopped watching cable news unless there’s a fast-unfolding event, and I’ve quit listening to all political podcasts regularly except the occasional Josh Marshall episode. But since I had hours and hours to fill last weekend, I downloaded a Pod Save the World episode.

I tuned a lot of it out, to be honest. Maybe I’m making more progress on the road to Normieville than I thought! But during a discussion about the reconciliation bill vs. the bipartisan infrastructure package, the O bros made a distinction between “moderates” like Amy Klobuchar and so-called “centrists” like the drama llama Manchinema pair in the Senate and their counterparts in the House, who were recently empastened (i.e., ground into paste) beneath the heel of Nancy Pelosi’s stylish sling-backs.

The terms “moderates” and “centrists” are often used interchangeably, but the O bros said there’s an important difference that should be observed. Moderates like Klobuchar have enduring political convictions that shape their views on proposals, but they’re capable of taking in new information and adjusting their stance accordingly, e.g., whoa, there’s a pandemic or a rogue SCOTUS or an outbreak of fascism in the opposite party, so we have to respond to that accordingly. Whereas “centrists” like Manchinema define their policy stance in opposition to the mainstream of their own party, regardless of external conditions. It’s a branding exercise.

That might be a big DUH to y’all, but I found it clarifying. I have no idea what it will mean for the infrastructure and reconciliation bills except to make the latter smaller, but that’s the framework within which the negotiations will proceed. As most of us suspect, there are likely a handful of senators hiding behind Manchinema’s skirts. Are they moderates or centrists? We’ll find out soon.

Open thread!

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Green Heron theory of politics

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Everyone here probably knows what the Green Lantern theory of politics is. What about the Green Heron?

Green Heron theory of politics
Basically, it’s yelling. Open thread!

ETA: We’re coming up on the third anniversary of moving to the swamp, and I’ve learned many things, including: 1. how to identify submerged turtles, fish and gators by the ripple patterns they leave on the surface of the water, and 2. Green Herons cluck very much like chickens.

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End of the Road for Roe?

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The Supreme Court passively allowed the breathtakingly extremist antichoice law in Texas to go into effect at midnight, and we haven’t heard a peep out of them since as far as I know. Assuming they remain silent on the Texas Handmaiden Act, the “will they or won’t they” question now is whether SCOTUS will strike Roe down outright when they take up the Mississippi case or continue to allow wingnut-controlled states to whittle away at reproductive freedom as they have been doing for years. Katha Pollitt:

If they are shrewd, the six antichoice justices on the Supreme Court will resist the urge to overturn Roe v. Wade when they decide next term on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. At issue is a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation in explicit defiance of Roe, which protects abortion rights until around 24 weeks. Why hand the Democrats an issue that has worked well for them in purple states like Virginia? An attempt in 2012 to force women seeking abortions to have transvaginal ultrasounds backfired against Republicans so powerfully the state is now entirely under Democratic control.

So, will the extremist wing of the court be able to resist spiking the football by killing Roe? Your guess is as good as mine. But reproductive rights are already over for millions of women who don’t have the means to travel to seek care. That’s been the case for a long time.

I think Pollitt is right to say it would be smart for the religious fanatics on the court to leave Roe alone. But she expresses a doubt I share: whether striking down Roe would galvanize the prochoice majority in America in sufficient numbers to make Republicans pay politically. Again, your guess is as good as mine.

Modern oppressive societies don’t usually pass grotesque laws like the one Abbott in Texas signed, which deputizes antichoice fanatics to investigate every suspected miscarriage with the incentive of a $10,000 bounty. Today’s oppressors are typically more sophisticated than that, leaving a Potemkin democracy and hollowed-out human rights framework in place to deflect criticism and maintain the appearance of civility.

Maybe the Bony Carrot wing of the court will settle for that, just as Roberts & Co. left a shell of the Voting Rights Act in place while greenlighting racially targeted voter suppression. Overturning Roe will make abortion less safe, but as Pollitt notes, we won’t simply return to the unsafe conditions of the pre-Roe era. Now there’s an organized army of fanatics eager to enforce their extremist vision on the rest of us.

Open thread.

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Our Longest War Goes On

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As a sort of companion piece to Mister Mix’s post downstairs about the lunatic protestors who are interfering with hospital operations, I want to note that just as they were on 1/6, hard-right nutjobs nationwide are being wound up and pointed at perceived political enemies, often directly by GOP elected officials/candidates. Here are two recent examples of Republican fascists exhorting supporters to overthrow the government, one at the schoolboard level and one at the federal:

This fascist isn’t an elected official yet and one hopes he never will be. But he’s just a loopier version of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently using the power of the state to punish schoolboard members who voted for mask mandates, even after a judge ruled that DeSantis lacks the constitutional authority to ban mask mandates.

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OK Boomer (Open Thread)

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During mating season, male alligators flirt with females and let rival gator dudes know there’s someone in the territory by “booming,” i.e., making a deep, guttural call while partially submerged in such a way that their scaly backs vibrate and produce a dancing water courtship display. (I don’t judge — I’ve seen far more inexplicable courtship displays by humans.)

Anyhoo, the booming typically ramps up when rainy season starts in June, but if you’re in the right place, you can hear gators booming all summer long. Here’s a 30-second vid I took with my phone from my porch a while ago. You won’t see the gators, but if you turn up the sound, you’ll hear distant gators calling and then a response that sounds like it’s coming from under my dock.

The alarmingly close gator you can hear at about the 20-second mark is probably Dexter, a little gator who has been hanging out on our dock when the river is high this summer, but it sure sounds big and scary, which is probably the point.

I have a healthy respect for gators, which is why I keep my dogs away from the water at all times and do not swim except in springs where I can see clearly. That said, I don’t live in fear of them. You’re hundreds or maybe even thousands of times more likely to die in a car collision with a deer than be attacked by a gator.

And yet, there’s something primordial about that booming that can freeze the blood, even if you’re in your own house that is safely elevated above the surface of the water. I think of it as nature’s way of saying, “You ain’t all that, human.” It’s an important and helpful reminder.

Open thread!

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