By David Futrelle
John McCain announces that he’s now a “no” vote on the Graham-Cassidy anti-healthcare bill, and gets hailed as a “hero,” proving that the standards for “heroism” amongst Republican senators is pretty damn low. But if McCain is your senator, you should probably call to thank him for this minimal act of human decency.
Meanwhile, millions of Puerto Ricans remain in dire straights, without power and water — and, sadly, without much media coverage. And Mexico City continues to dig out from last week’s earthquake.
Here’s Johnny:
I cannot in good conscience vote for Graham-Cassidy. A bill impacting so many lives deserves a bipartisan approach. https://t.co/2sDjhw6Era pic.twitter.com/30OWezQpLg
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) September 22, 2017
https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/911307015703670784
https://twitter.com/ChrisWarcraft/status/911306765559402497
https://twitter.com/maxsparber/status/911301004511072256
Don't let McCain's pledge stop you from calling Murkowski and Collins. Call right now.
Murkowski: (202) 224-6665
Collins: (202) 224-2523— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) September 22, 2017
(Note: Murkowski’s people say they welcome calls from out of state. Hint hint.)
BREAKING: Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine says she's `leaning against' latest GOP health care bill, cites major concerns.
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 22, 2017
McCain says he's a no on #GrahamCassidy. This isn't a reason to let up—the bill isn't dead yet. Keep calling! ☎️ 1-866-665-4470 #KillTheBill pic.twitter.com/htEJSRBcT9
— Reproductive Freedom for All (@reproforall) September 22, 2017
And now to Puerto Rico, a place the media seems to have largely forgotten:
Puerto Rico's population is larger that WY, VT, ND + AK combined. and it's entirely without power.
Donate + HELP: https://t.co/RnR5rH1Sy4
— . (@MarisaKabas) September 22, 2017
Puerto Rico:
Yet another reason that Puerto Rico's massive power outages are a huge crisis: https://t.co/zfYn2qpOi0 pic.twitter.com/juKS49WWMq
— brad plumer (@bradplumer) September 22, 2017
Puerto Rico's power outage could be a death sentence for many https://t.co/9ccQ1XC9li pic.twitter.com/6ZdHGjzJF7
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) September 22, 2017
More options here if you want to help Puerto Rico (or the other islands in the Caribbean that have been hit hard by Irma and Maria).
Here’s what it looks like in Mexico City today:
WATCH: Drone footage of Mexico City after another deadly earthquake caused destruction in the region earlier this week. pic.twitter.com/DoekMFVY2b
— PBS News (@NewsHour) September 22, 2017
In other news:
Yiannopoulos’ Planned ‘Free Speech Week’ Appears To Implode Spectacularly https://t.co/CXCvlZRMau
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) September 22, 2017
Leftists didn’t kill it; it was killed by the sheer incopetence of Milo ‘n’ pals, who failed to fill out the paperwork to reserve rooms or even contact some of the touted speakers to tell them they’d been invited. It’s almost as if they never intended the event to happen in the first place.
https://twitter.com/Kherman112/status/911285209777160192
In “bad but completely expected news.”
BREAKING: @usedgov just rescinded the 2011 #TitleIX guidance that explains schools' obligations to survivors of sexual violence. #StopBetsy pic.twitter.com/AD8Xezq22q
— National Women's Law Center (@nwlc) September 22, 2017
More bullshit poop crap:
Small government? BS
Abusing taxpayer money used to be a firing offense. Not in Trump era. https://t.co/IYXv5mQE8c
— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) September 21, 2017
Appears in this video that Erdogan security forces once again assaulted American protesters. If so, his thugs must be detained immediately. https://t.co/uB5JSnM8P3
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) September 22, 2017
https://twitter.com/MuslimIQ/status/910284960610836480
Wait, what? @seanspicer threatens to report @mikeallen to the "appropriate authorities" for, uh, texting him? https://t.co/BdSGyeFOsb pic.twitter.com/KEyroQZKSd
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) September 21, 2017
And here, we have video of Trump saying that Melania “really wanted to be here”…while she’s standing next to him. (h/t @MaverickofKain) pic.twitter.com/rvQCUo4RYB
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) September 21, 2017
Whoever designed this floor is evil. THATS A FLAT CARPET. pic.twitter.com/RGENHZJN81
— Muselk (@muselk) September 21, 2017
Kitties!
💓💓Aww so cute #RedPanda 😍🤓😁💓 pic.twitter.com/qKhHcCMHmQ
— т є ʀ є 🐼 (@beatshoney) September 12, 2017
how am I supposed to study when my hedgehog just sits there waiting for me to give him attention pic.twitter.com/dEtD4cDOmu
— mal (@lebaneseplease) September 21, 2017
https://twitter.com/BBAnimals/status/910987122018062338
Ok, technically none of those were kitties.
@Kat @Dormousing_it: He’s really a terrible person…and he’s STILL better than Trump.
@Jeselin I hope it all goes really well. Sending good thoughts your way.
@Robert Walker-Smith
You’re not alone. I was very confused for a long while.
@Jesalin
Safe travels! I hope it goes well.
@Jesalin,
You’re incredibly brave and amazing. Please let us know how you go, if you’d like to <3 <3 <3
@OoglyBoggles,
I've been a very sporadic and occasional Mammotheer lately, so I'm embarrassed to confess that I only just caught up with your current life-changing events! Congratulations and tons of warm wishes 😀
Phrenology – yep, me too for a second there…
@Jesalin
Hope all goes smoothly and your recovery is brief.
The Berkeley Patriot student group runs a tiny conservative publication, which now operates as a blog though they used to make a print magazine. They invited Milo to speak on campus because they felt he had a right to speak even though some members didn’t necessarily agree with him, but they couldn’t figure out how to publicize the event or talk to the press. In the middle of the confusion, Milo apparently stepped in and took complete control of the marketing and logistics for the event, including issuing announcements and advertising without approval from Berkeley Patriot. It looks like Milo’s marketing MO for the event involved aggressively courting media hype, deliberately provoking a possibly violent confrontation with people on the extreme left, and creating a general sense of fear, uncertainty, and doubt around the event (putting people like Charles Murray on the speakers list when he won’t collaborate with Milo, etc.).
I’m more free speech absolutist on the general issue of campus speakers, but Milo definitely comes out of this looking like a complete scumbag who deserves a reputation worse than the one he already has.
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/09/23/amid-confusion-uc-berkeley-students-considered-rescinding-yiannopolous-invite/
Good luck, Jesalin!
Charles Murray (the one who’s the co-author of The Bell Curve) called Milo a “despicable asshole.”
https://www.mediaite.com/online/despicable-ahole-charles-murray-slams-milo-yiannopoulos-for-fake-berkeley-event-lineup/
@History Nerd
It’s been a while since I graduated from UC Berkeley, but as I remember it, the California Patriot was a publication of the Berkeley College Republicans. BCR might have spun it off into a separate student group on its own, I wouldn’t know the specifics.
This, however, hasn’t changed much. Back in my student days, BCR was basically a troll group, delighting in being as offensively conservative as they could while still maintaining a veneer of civility so that they could screech “freedumb of speech!” whenever somebody called them out. This recent Milo business and Frozen Peaches Fortnight is basically same shit, different toilet paper.
@Mish, @OoglyBoggles
Me too, Mish.
OoglyBoggles, sending you my best wishes.
@numerobis
That’s a new word for me. Thanks!
@numerobis
Yinz? It sounds as though you’ve spent time in my hometown, Pittsburgh.
KindaSortaHarmless:
I certainly don’t have enough data points to be able to say “just like every conservative student group everywhere”. But it really seems like an immature need to shock and provoke is a motivating factor in many conservative student groups – and has been since at least the time I was at university, nearly forty years ago.
Anyone else feeling put off by History Nerd’s constant need to point out that they’re a free speech absolutist every time hate speech on college campuses is brought up? It seems to imply an unspoken “unlike the rest of you alt-left fascists” tacked on there somewhere.
Never mind that protesting a speaker is not even a denial of their free speech…
Kat: I’ve been dahntahn a few times, but mostly I just piled it high and deep in squill and Oakland. It’s my other home town.
About Berkeley: I recall a pride parade there where the Berkeley College Republicans were chanting “Bush! And Dick! The perfect combination!” (They might have been imposters, maybe.)
Ah, the good ol’ days when Bush and Dick were unbelievably bad. Now they’d be a breath of fresh air!
@Nerd
They agreed with enough of it tho. Republicans are good at that. Not every Trump voter thinks that his healthcare plan is any good. An awful lot don’t actually. But he gives them just enough of the queer bashing, segregationist, low tax, war posturing, librul tears drinking rush they crave, that they don’t care. I don’t believe for 1 sec that their disagreements with Yiannopolous or Coulter or anyone else are at all that extensive
Imma need a definition for this…
@WWTH
Agreed
@numerobis
Yeah, no. It’s not unbelievable how bad either administration has been, nor would a return to those fucks be “fresh air”. Quite believable and still nasty air. Something something privilege, yadda yadda tried to tell y’all
Right? It’s like, “would you prefer to be eaten by dry-rot zombies, or putrefying zombies”? UM NEITHER ONE THANKS BYE
@Axe:
Complete abolition of private property?
@Surplus
Exactly some shit like that, yeah. Cos, like, Nerd coulda meant ‘people who’re extreme in their adherence to leftist ideologies’, as in your example. Or they coulda meant ‘extremists by some other measure who happen to be leftists’, by which I took the other measure to be propensity to violence. Could go either way, so I’m legit curious which. Or both maybe?
@Dimmy
‘It was so much better 10yrs ago’
‘For whom?’
Here’s an article that completely ignores some odious sexism:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2016/09/13/if-you-leave-your-kids-alone-its-not-predatory-strangers-who-are-a-risk.html
First, though mention is made that respondents to their survey think it’s more bad for a female parent to be absent to take “me time” than for her to be absent for work, while for a male parent the numbers are equal, no follow-up is done on how this indicates a sexist standard that when a woman has children she is no longer allowed to have time for herself. (Also, perhaps, that a woman having an affair is worse than a man having an affair. And that’s also ignoring the heteronormative assumptions made.)
Then there’s the situation described at the end, in which a female lawyer is harassed and investigated for “child abuse” for a 3-minute absence from her children. It specifically mentions they subjected her to a psych exam. No mention is made of the likelihood that a man would not, at the very least, have been subjected to a psych exam. Because women’s behavior that men disapprove of must always be medicalized, it seems …
“The real stranger danger doesn’t come from would-be kidnappers.
It comes from people who think they’re doing good.”
Especially, it seems, from a subset who think that “doing good” includes specifically discouraging women from being anything other than traditional housewives.
But the article does not say anything really at all about the gendered double standards it uncovered.
Thoughts?
By “extreme left” I mean a spectrum including left-wing people with a propensity to violence, black bloc anarchists, communist organizations with active paramilitary wings, people who think urban guerrilla warfare is necessary for social progress, etc. That’s a tiny group of people compared to the rest of the left, and your views on tactics don’t have much to do with how far to the left your political views are. Assuming otherwise is basically Red Scare paranoia and McCarthyism.
BCR was a troll group pretty much. The whole “young conservatives” stuff is very heavily focused on radicalizing people involved in trolling or chan culture who already have some center-right views. Right libertarians and brocialists drift towards fascism once they become conscious that greater social equality means that they won’t enjoy the same privilege or have the same moral license to get away with certain behaviors (and it’s important to point out that they have that moral license benefiting them psychologically even if they’ve never engaged in the behaviors). It’s more about social privilege, less about whether some disadvantaged person might take your job.
He has a right to speak. He doesn’t have a right to a platform.
No, you’re a platform absolutist. Except for the part where you’re not, because you obviously don’t work toward giving everyone and their Grandma Moses a platform. Only the already-famous get one.
Public universities are forced to be “platform absolutist” if they allow student groups to invite speakers for non-academic purposes.
Protesting the speakers and exposing them is great. I’ll shut up about disagreeing with more militant tactics because I agree that plays into right-wingers who twist and distort it. This blog is not really the place to debate about that sort of stuff anyway.
Maybe the university is, but I’m not forced to be anything. I can protest and try to get the talk canceled if I want. I’m not bound by the rules of the university.
But trying to get them canceled is not great? Why are you not absolutist about my freedom of speech?
If right-wingers are going to twist and distort what I do, then it doesn’t matter what I do, does it now?
Computer problems here. I have a deadline coming up this week, and my laptop is fucking with me as usual.
Basically, my computer decided to randomly update Windows, which took about 8 hours, and now it won’t start up at all. I can get to the sign in-screen and put in my password, but from there nothing ever happens. The only way out is to shut down by holding down the power button, and then I have the same problem next time I turn it back on.
In conclusion, why are computers like this?